as an English boy reads him at Eton or Harrow.
"Kind Athens," he goes on, "added a little more learning, to the end
that I might be able to distinguish right from wrong, and to seek for
truth amongst the groves of Academus." And just in the same way the
English youth goes on to read philosophy at Oxford.

The studies of the two young men were interrupted by the same cause, the
civil war which followed the death of Caesar. They took service with
Brutus, both having the same rank, that of military tribune, a command
answering more or less nearly to that of colonel in our own army. It
was, however, mainly an ornamental rank, being bestowed sometimes by
favor of the general in command, sometimes by a popular vote. The young
Cicero indeed had already served, and he now distinguished himself
greatly, winning some considerable successes in the command of the
cavalry which Brutus afterwards gave him. When the hopes of the party
were crushed at Phillippi, he joined the younger Pompey in Sicily; but
took an opportunity of an amnesty which was offered four years
afterwards to return to Rome. Here he must have found his old
fellow-student, who had also reconciled himself to the victorious party.
He was made one of the college of augurs, and also a commissioner of the
mint, and in B.C. 30 he had the honour of sharing the consulship with
Augustus himself. It was to him that the dispatch announcing the final
defeat and death of Antony was delivered; and it fell to him to execute
the decree which ordered the destruction of all the statues of the
fallen chief. "Then," says Plutarch, "by the ordering of heaven the
punishment of Antony was inflicted at last by the house of Cicero." His
time of office ended, he went as Governor to Asia, or, according to some
accounts, to Syria; and thus disappears from our view.

Pliny the Elder tells us that he was a drunkard, sarcastically observing
that he sought to avenge himself on Antony by robbing him of the
reputation which he had before enjoyed of being the hardest drinker of
the time. As the story which he tells of the younger Cicero being able
to swallow twelve pints of wine at a draught is clearly incredible,
perhaps we may disbelieve the whole, and with it the other anecdote,
that he threw a cup at the head of Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law to the
Emperor, and after him the greatest man in Rome.

CHAPTER III.

IN THE DAYS OF THE DICTATOR.

In November 82 B.C., Cornelius Sulla became