received in the course of his life by legacies
nearly L200,000 (twenty million sesterces), in itself a source of great
income, and one common with Romans of high position.[81] Of the extent
of his income it is impossible to speak, or even make a guess. But we do
know that he lived always as a rich man--as one who regards such a
condition of life as essentially proper to him; and that though he was
often in debt, as was customary with noble Romans, he could always write
about his debts in a vein of pleasantry, showing that they were not a
heavy burden to him; and we know that he could at all times command for
himself villas, books, statues, ornaments, columns, galleries, charming
shades, and all the delicious appendages of mingled wealth and
intelligence. He was as might be some English marquis, who, though up to
his eyes in mortgages, is quite sure that he will never want any of the
luxuries befitting a marquis. Though we have no authority to tell us how
his condition of life became what it was, it is necessary that we should
understand that condition if we are to get a clear insight into his
life. Of that condition we have ample evidence. He commenced his career
as a youth upon whose behalf nothing was spared, and when he settled
himself in Rome, with the purport of winning for himself the highest
honors of the Republic, he did so with the means of living like a
nobleman.

But the point on which it is most necessary to insist is this: that
while so many--I may almost say all around him in his own order--were
unscrupulous as to their means of getting money, he kept his hands
clean. The practice then was much as it is now. A gentleman in our days
is supposed to have his hands clean; but there has got abroad among us a
feeling that, only let a man rise high enough, soil will not stick to
him. To rob is base; but if you rob enough, robbery will become heroism,
or, at any rate, magnificence. With Caesar his debts have been accounted
happy audacity; his pillage of Gaul and Spain, and of Rome also, have
indicated only the success of the great General; his cruelty, which in
cold-blooded efficiency has equalled if not exceeded the
blood-thirstiness of any other tyrant, has been called clemency.[82] I
do not mean to draw a parallel between Caesar and Cicero. No two men
could have been more different in their natures or in their career. But
the one has been lauded because he was unscrupulous, and the other has
incurred reproach