In the year B.O. 77, after a two years' absence, during which Sulla had died, Cicero returned to ]tome, and married Terentia, whose rank and station iu society we may estimate by the fact that her sister Fable was one of the vestal virgins. He applied himself again with zeal to the law-courts and the forum, in which at this time the most distin guished orators wore Aurelius eotta and Hortensina; but next to them stood Cicero, whose services were in constant demand for causes of the highest importance. But independently of the reputation he was acquiring, he was at the same time opening the way to the political honours of his country; and it is a somewhat singular coincidence that in the year n.c. 76 the three first orators of Rome, Cotta, Hortensius, and Cicero, were successful candidates for the several offices of consul, mdile, and qutestor, which they respectively filled iu the following year. The provinces of the quaestors being distributed to them by lot, the island of Sicily fell to Cicero'a share, or rather the western portiou of that island, which had Lilybasurn for its chief town ; the whole island being under the government of S. Peducteus as praetor, with whom Cicero, and above all Atticus, lived on terms of the closest intimacy, until Peducteus fell with Pause at the battle before Muting. Sicily was one of the granaries as it were of Rome, and the quiestor's chief employment in it was to supply corn for the use of the city ; and as there happened to be a peculiar scarcity this year at Rome, it was necessary to the public, quiet to scud large and speedy supplies. This task Cicero accomplished, he tells us, and at the same time gave the highest satisfaction to all parties in the province. In the hours of leisure he employed himself, as at Rome, in his rhetorical studies ; so that on his return from Sicily his abilities as an orator were, according to his own judgment, iu their full perfection and maturity. Before he left Sicily he made a tour of the island, and gratified himself by a visit to Syracuse, where he discovered the tomb of Archimedes, which had been hest eight of by his countrymen, and was found overgrown with briars. lie came away from the Island extremely pleased with the success of his administration, and flattering himself that all Rome was celebrating his praise. In this imagination he landed at Puteoli, end was not a little mortified on being asked by the first friend he net "How long he had left Rome, and what nowe he brought from :hence!" This mortification however led him to reflect that the people of Rome had dull ears, but quick eyes ; eo that from this moment be resolved to stick close to the forum, and to live perpetually in the view of his countrymen.
Pompey was at this time carrying on the war against Sertorius in Spain. Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, soon after died, leaving the strange legacy of his kingdom to the Romans ; and the King of Pontius, ever ready to avail himself of the dissensions of the Romans, and justified on the present occasion by the Bithynian intrigue, renewed his hostilities by a double invasion of Bithynia and Asia.
The two consuls, Lucullus and Cotta, were both sent to oppose him ; and while the arms of Rome were thus employed in the different extremities of the empire, a still more alarming war (B.°. 73) broke out at home, which, originating with some gladiators, led to an extensive insurrection of the slaves, and under the able conduct of Spartacus threatened the very existence of the state. During this turbulent period Cicero persevered in a close attendance upon the forum, though none of the speeches which be then delivered have been preserved, excepting those which relate to the prosecution against Verres. Peducreus had been succeeded, after one year's government of Sicily, by Sacerdoe, and he, after the same interval, by Verres; for it was a principle of Roman policy to give to as many as possible a share in the plunder of the provinces; though occasionally superior influence, not the merit of the individual, led to a con tinuance of his government for two or even three years. Such was the case with Vcrres, who during three years made the Sicilians feel all those evils in their worst form which the Roman principles of pro vincial administration in bad bands were so well calculated to produce. Cicero had many difficulties to overcome in his endeavours to subject the criminal to the punishment of his crimes. In the first place the judices (jury), under the law of Sulla, would consist exclusively of senators; that is, of those who had a direct interest in protecting provincial mal-administration. Moreover, at the very outset there started up a rival in one Caccilius, who had been qumstor under Verres, and claimed a preference to Cicero iu the task of impeaching him. A
previous suit, technically called a dirinatio, was necessary to decide between the rival prosecutors. Cicero succeeded io convincing the jury that his opponent's object was, to use another technical term, pre varicatio, that is, to screen the criminal by a sham prosecution. This previous point being settled in his favour, he made a voyage to Sicily to examine witnesses and collect facts to support the indictment, taking his cousin Lucius Cicero to assist him. Fifty days were spent in their progress through the island, in which he had to encounter the oppo sition of the new prietor Metellus, who was endeavouring, with many of the leading men at home, to defeat the prosecution. On his return to Rome he found it necessary to guard against all the arts of delay which interest or money could procure for the purpose of postponing the trial to the next year, when Hortensius and Metellus were to be consuls, and Metellus's brother one of the praetors, in which character he might have presided as judge on the trial. Cicero was induced therefore to waive the privilege of employing twenty days In the accusation ; and a single speech on the 5th of August, followed by an examination of his witnesses and the production of documentary evidence, produced an impression so unfavourable to Verree that even his advocate Hortensius was abashed, and Verres went forthwith into exile.
The five other speeches against Verree, in which Cicero enters into the details of his charges, were never actually spoken, if we may believe the commentator upon these orations—who passes under the name of Asconius—but were written subsequently at his leisure, partly perhaps to substantiate his charges before the public, but still more as specimens of what he could do in the character of an accuser, which he did not often sustain.
Though a verdict was given against Verres by the jury of senators, yet the past misconduct of that order in their judicial capacity had been so glaring that the public indignation called for the election of censors, whose office had slept for some years; and the magistrates so appointed erased from the roll of the senate sixty-four of that body, expressly on the ground of judicial corruption. To remedy the evil for the future a new law was passed, at the suggestion of the praetor Aureliva Cotta, hence called the lex Aurelia, by which the equites (knights) and certain of the commoners (tribuni ierarii) were asso ciated with the senators in the constitution of public juries. It was subsequent to the enactment of this law that Cicero made the speeches in defence of Q. Roecius, M. Fonteius, and A. Cimino. The first of these was the celebrated actor, whose name has since become pro verbial. The suit grew out of a compensation which had been made for the death of a slave, whom Roscius had educated in his own profession. M. Fonteius was the object of a prosecution for extortion and peculation (de repetundis) in the province of Gallia Transalpina, and must have been guilty, if we may judge from the fragments of his advocate's speech which have come down to us. The cause of Cmcina was of a private nature, and turned entirely upon dry points of law. The mdileship of Cicero (n.c. 69) had little of that magni ficence which was so commonly displayed in this office, but it gave the Sicilians an opportunity of showing their gratitude to the prosecutor of Verres, by supplies for the public festivals. After an interval of two years, Cicero entered upon the office of prmtor (n.c. 66), and It fell opportunely to his lot to preside in the court of extortion—a court especially provided against that ordinary offence in the administration of the provinces. The year of Cieero'e prmtorship was marked by the conviction of Licinius Macer, in opposition to the influence of his kinsman Crassus. But the moat remarkable event in his prmtorship was the passing of the Manilian law, by which the command of the war against Mithridates was transferred to Pompey, whose claims Cicero supported in a speech which still remains. It was in this year too that he defended Cluentius. This speech likewise exists, and gives a sad spectacle of the uncertainty of life and property at this period. Before the close of his proctorship he betrothed his daughter Tullis, who could not have been more than ten years old, to C. Piso Frugi. She was at present his only child, for his son Marcus was not born until the middle of the following year, which was also the birth-year of Horace.