ther or his
friends to that orator who might then be considered to be the leading
man in the city. It became his daily work to follow that man, to
accompany him, to be conversant with all his speeches, whether in the
courts of law or at public meetings, so that he might learn, if I might
say so, to fight in the very thick of the throng." It was thus that
Cicero studied his art. A few lines farther down, the pseudo-Tacitus
tells us that Crassus, in his nineteenth year, held a brief against
Carbo; that Caesar did so in his twenty-first against Dolabella; and
Pollio, in his twenty-second year, against Cato.[43] In this precocity
Cicero did not imitate Crassus, or show an example to the Romans who
followed him. He was twenty-six when he pleaded his first cause. Sulla
had then succeeded in crushing the Marian faction, and the Sullan
proscriptions had taken place, and were nominally over. Sulla had been
declared Dictator, and had proclaimed that there should be no more
selections for death. The Republic was supposed to be restored.
"Recuperata republica * * * tum primum nos ad causas et privatas et
publicas adire c[oe]pimus,"[44] "The Republic having been restored, I then
first applied myself to pleadings, both private and public."

Of Cicero's politics at that time we are enabled to form a fair
judgment. Marius had been his townsman; Sulla had been his captain. But
the one thing dear to him was the Republic--what he thought to be the
Republic. He was neither Marian nor Sullan. The turbulence in which so
much noble blood had flowed--the "crudelis interitus oratorum," the
crushing out of the old legalized form of government--was abominable to
him. It was his hope, no doubt his expectation, that these old forms
should be restored in all their power. There seemed to be more
probability of this--there was more probability of it--on the side of
Sulla than the other. On Sulla's side was Pompey, the then rising man,
who, being of the same age with Cicero, had already pushed himself into
prominence, who was surnamed the Great, and who "triumphed" during these
very two years in which Cicero began his career; who through Cicero's
whole life was his bugbear, his stumbling-block, and his mistake. But on
that side were the "optimates," the men who, if they did not lead, ought
to lead the Republic; those who, if they were not respectable, ought to
be so; those who, if they did not love their country, ought to love it.
If there was a hope,