uld permit, and
to lose as few years as possible in reaching the summit. Cicero lost
none. As he himself tells us in the passage to which I have referred in
the last chapter, and which is to be found in the Appendix, he gained
the good-will of men--that is, of free Romans who had the suffrage, and
who could therefore vote either for him or against him--by the assiduity
of his attention to the cases which he undertook, and by a certain
brilliancy of speech which was new to them.[85] Putting his hand
strenuously to the plough, allowing himself to be diverted by none of
those luxuries to which Romans of his day were so wont to give way, he
earned his purpose by a resolution to do his very best. He was "Novus
Homo"--a man, that is, belonging to a family of which no member had as
yet filled high office in the State. Against such there was a strong
prejudice with the aristocracy, who did not like to see the good things
of the Republic dispersed among an increased number of hands. The power
of voting was common to all Roman male citizens; but the power of
influencing the electors had passed very much into the hands of the
rich. The admiration which Cicero had determined to elicit would not go
very far, unless it could be produced in a very high degree. A Verres
could get himself made Praetor; a Lepidus some years since could receive
the Consulship; or now an Antony, or almost a Catiline. The candidate
would borrow money on the security of his own audacity, and would thus
succeed--perhaps with some minor gifts of eloquence, if he could achieve
them. With all this, the borrowing and the spending of money, that is,
with direct bribery, Cicero would have nothing to do; but of the art of
canvassing--that art by which he could at the moment make himself
beloved by the citizens who had a vote to give--he was a profound
master.

There is a short treatise, De Petitione Consulatus, on canvassing for
the Consulship, of which mention may be made here, because all the
tricks of the trade were as essential to him, when looking to be
Quaestor, as when he afterward desired to be Consul, and because the
political doings of his life will hurry us on too quickly in the days of
his Consulship to admit of our referring to these lessons. This little
piece, of which we have only a fragment, is supposed to have been
addressed to Cicero by his brother Quintus, giving fraternal advice as
to the then coming great occasion. The critics say that it was re