.
A. stands for Aulus, P. for Publius, M. generally for Marcus, C. for
Caius, though there was a Cneus also. The nomen, Tullius, was that of
the family. Of this family of Tullius to which Cicero belonged we know
no details. Plutarch tells us that of his father nothing was said but in
extremes, some declaring that he had been a fuller, and others that he
had been descended from a prince who had governed the Volsci. We do not
see why he may not have sprung from the prince, and also have been a
fuller. There can, however, be no doubt that he was a gentleman, not
uneducated himself, with means and the desire to give his children the
best education which Rome or Greece afforded. The third name or
cognomen, that of Cicero, belonged to a branch of the family of Tullius.
This third name had generally its origin, as do so many of our surnames,
in some specialty of place, or trade, or chance circumstance. It was
said that an ancestor had been called Cicero from "cicer," a vetch,
because his nose was marked with the figure of that vegetable. It is
more probable that the family prospered by the growing and sale of
vetches. Be that as it may, the name had been well established before
the orator's time. Cicero's mother was one Helvia, of whom we are told
that she was well-born and rich. Cicero himself never alludes to her--as
neither, if I remember rightly, did Horace to his mother, though he
speaks so frequently of his father. Helvia's younger son, Quintus, tells
a story of his mother in a letter, which has been, by chance, preserved
among those written by our Cicero. She was in the habit of sealing up
the empty wine-jars, as well as those which were full, so that a jar
emptied on the sly by a guzzling slave might be at once known. This is
told in a letter to Tiro, a favorite slave belonging to Marcus, of whom
we shall hear often in the course of our work. As the old lady sealed up
the jars, though they contained no wine, so must Tiro write letters,
though he has nothing to say in them. This kind of argument, taken from
the old familiar stories of one's childhood and one's parents, could be
only used to a dear and familiar friend. Such was Tiro, though still a
slave, to the two brothers. Roman life admitted of such friendships,
though the slave was so completely the creature of the master that his
life and death were at the master's disposal. This is nearly all that is
known of Cicero's father and mother, or of his old home.

There