o bribe the judges so highly that he is now as poor as they were
before they got their plunder. At every word we read we are tempted to
agree with Mommsen that on the Roman oligarchy of the period no judgment
can be passed save one, "of inexorable condemnation."[86]

"Remember," says Quintus, "that your candidature is very strong in that
kind of friendship which has been created by your pleadings. Take care
that each of those friends shall know what special business is allotted
to him on the occasion; and as you have not troubled any of them yet,
make them understand that you have reserved for the present moment the
payment of their debts." This is all very well; but the next direction
mingles so much of business with its truth, that no one but Machiavelli
or Quintus Cicero could have expressed it in words. "Men," says Quintus,
"are induced to struggle for us in these canvassings by three
motives--by memory of kindness done, by the hope of kindness to come,
and by community of political conviction. You must see how you are to
catch each of these. Small favors will induce a man to canvass for you;
and they who owe their safety to your pleadings, for there are many
such, are aware that if they do not stand by you now they will be
regarded by all the world as sorry fellows. Nevertheless, they should be
made to feel that, as they are indebted to you, you will be glad to have
an opportunity of becoming indebted to them. But as to those on whom you
have a hold only by hope--a class of men very much more numerous, and
likely to be very much more active--they are the men whom you should
make to understand that your assistance will be always at their
command."

How severe, how difficult was the work of canvassing in Rome, we learn
from these lessons. It was the very essence of a great Roman's life that
he should live in public; and to such an extent was this carried that we
wonder how such a man as Cicero found time for the real work of his
life. The Roman patron was expected to have a levee every morning early
in his own house, and was wont, when he went down into the Forum, to be
attended by a crowd of parasites. This had become so much a matter of
course that a public man would have felt himself deserted had he been
left alone either at home or abroad. Rome was full of idlers--of men who
got their bread by the favors of the great, who lounged through their
lives--political quidnuncs, who made canvassing a trade--men without a