He is such an actor,"
says Cicero, "that there is none other on the stage worthy to be seen;
and such a man that among men he is the last that should have become an
actor."[83] The orator's praise of the actor is not of much importance.
Had not Roscius been great in his profession, his name would not have
come down to later ages. Nor is it now matter of great interest that the
actor should have been highly praised as a man by his advocate; but it
is something for us to know that the stage was generally held in such
low repute as to make it seem to be a pity that a good man should have
taken himself to such a calling.

In the year 76 B.C. Cicero became father of a daughter, whom we shall
know as Tullia--who, as she grew up, became the one person whom he loved
best in all the world--and was elected Quaestor. Cicero tells us of
himself that in the preceding year he had solicited the Quaestorship,
when Cotta was candidate for the Consulship and Hortensius for the
Praetorship. There are in the dialogue De Claris Oratoribus--which has
had the name of Brutus always given to it--some passages in which the
orator tells us more of himself than in any other of his works. I will
annex a translation of a small portion because of its intrinsic
interest; but I will relegate it to an appendix, because it is too long
either for insertion in the text or for a note.[84]

CHAPTER V.

_CICERO AS QUAESTOR._

Cicero was elected Quaestor in his thirtieth year, B.C. 76. He was then
nearly thirty-one. His predecessors and rivals at the bar, Cotta and
Hortensius, were elected Consul and Praetor, respectively, in the same
year. To become Quaestor at the earliest age allowed by the law (at
thirty-one, namely) was the ambition of the Roman advocate who purposed
to make his fortune by serving the State. To act as Quaestor in his
thirty-second year, AEdile in his thirty-seventh, Praetor in his
forty-first, and Consul in his forty-fourth year, was to achieve, in the
earliest succession allowed by law, all the great offices of trust,
power, and future emolument. The great reward of proconsular rapine did
not generally come till after the last step, though there were notable
instances in which a Propraetor with proconsular authority could make a
large fortune, as we shall learn when we come to deal with Verres, and
though AEdiles, and even Quaestors, could find pickings. It was therefore
a great thing for a man to begin as early as the law wo