hy and rhetoric as well as law, traveling over Sicily and
Greece, and preparing himself for a forensic orator. At twenty-five he
appeared in the forum as a public pleader, and boldly defended the
oppressed and injured, and even braved the anger of Sulla, then
all-powerful as dictator. At twenty-seven he again repaired to Athens for
greater culture, and extensively traveled in Asia Minor, holding converse
with the most eminent scholars and philosophers in the Grecian cities. At
twenty-nine he returned to Rome, improved in health as well as in those
arts which contributed to his unrivaled fame as an orator--a rival with
Hortensius and Cotta, the leaders of the Roman bar. At thirty he was
elected quaestor, not, as was usually the case, by family interest, but
from his great reputation as a lawyer. The duties of his office called him
to Sicily, under the praetor of Lilybaeum, which he admirably discharged,
showing not only executive ability, but rare virtue and impartiality. The
vanity which dimmed the lustre of his glorious name, and which he never
exorcised, received a severe wound on his return to Italy. He imagined he
was the observed of all observers, but soon discovered that his gay and
fashionable friends were ignorant, not only of what he had done in Sicily
but of his administration at all.

(M1001) For the next four years he was absorbed in private studies, and in
the courts of law, at the end of which he became aedile, the year that
Verres was impeached for misgovernment in Sicily. This was the most
celebrated State trial for impeachment on record, with the exception,
perhaps, of that of Warren Hastings. But Cicero, who was the public
accuser and prosecutor, was more fortunate than Burke. He collected such
an overwhelming mass of evidence against this corrupt governor, that he
went into exile without making a defense, although defended by Hortensius,
consul elect. The speech which the orator _was to have_ made at the trial
was subsequently published by Cicero, and is one of the most eloquent
tirades against public corruption ever composed or uttered.

(M1002) Nothing of especial interest marked the career of this great man
for three more years, until B.C. 67 he was elected first praetor, or
supreme judge, an office for which he was supremely qualified. But it was
not merely civic cases which he decided. He appeared as a political
speaker, and delivered from the rostrum his celebrated speech on the
Manilian laws, m