was the news
there. When he answered rather crossly that he had just come from
Sicily, another acquaintance put in with "Why, of course. Didn't you
know he has just been quaestor _at Syracuse_!" At any rate he had done
sufficiently well in Lilybaeum to give him his next step, the aedileship
to which he was elected B.C. 70, and to induce the Sicilians to apply to
him, when in that year they desired the prosecution of the extortionate
Verres. His energy and success in this business raised him, without
question, to the first rank of advocates, and pledged him to a righteous
policy in regard to the government of the provinces.

[Sidenote: Cicero's Boyhood and Education.]

Still Cicero was a _novus homo_, and the jealous exclusiveness of the
great families at Rome might yet prevent his attainment of the highest
office of all. When the correspondence opens he is a candidate for the
praetorship, which he obtained without difficulty, at the head of the
poll. But his birth might still be a bar to the consulship. His father,
M. Tullius, lived at Arpinum, an ancient city of the Volscians and
afterwards of the Samnites, which had long enjoyed a partial, and from
B.C. 188 a complete, Roman franchise, and was included in the Cornelian
tribe. Cicero's mother's name was Helvia, of whom we know nothing but
the one anecdote told by Quintus (_Fam._ xvi. 26), who says that she
used to seal the wine jars when they were emptied, so that none might be
drained without her knowing it--a testimony to her economy and careful
housewifery. His father had weak health and resided almost entirely in
his villa at Arpinum, which he had considerably enlarged, much devoted
to study and literature (_de Leg._ ii. 1). But though he apparently
possessed considerable property, giving him equestrian rank, and though
Cicero says that his family was very ancient, yet neither he nor any of
his ancestors had held Roman magistracies. Marcus and his brother
Quintus were the first of their family to do so, and both had to depend
on character and ability to secure their elections. But though the
father did nothing for his sons by holding curule office himself, he did
the best for their education that was possible. Cicero calls him
_optimus et prudentissimus_, and speaks with gratitude of what he had
done for his sons in this respect. They were sent early to Rome to the
house of C. Aculeo, a learned jurisconsult, married to a sister of
Helvia; and attended--with their