of course, ambitious of distinction.

There were only three ways at Rome in which a man could rise to eminence
and power. One was by making money, like army contractors and merchants,
such as the Equites, to whose ranks he belonged; the second was by
military service; and the third by the law,--an honorable profession.
Like Caesar, a few years younger than he, Cicero selected the law. But
he was a _new man_,--not a patrician, as Caesar was,--and had few
powerful friends. Hence his progress was not rapid in the way of
clients. He was twenty-five years of age before he had a case. He was
twenty-seven when he defended Roscius, which seems to have brought him
into notice,--even as the fortune of Erskine was made in the Greenwich
Hospital case and that of Daniel Webster in the case of Dartmouth
College. To have defended Roscius against all the influence of Sulla,
then the most powerful man in Rome, was considered bold and audacious.
His fame for great logical power rests on his defence of Milo,--the
admiration of all lawyers.

Cicero was not naturally robust. His figure was tall and spare, his neck
long and slender, and his mouth anything but sensual. He looked more
like an elegant scholar than a popular public speaker. Yet he was
impetuous, ardent, and fiery, like Demosthenes, resorting to violent
gesticulations. The health of such a young man could not stand the
strain on his nervous system, and he was obliged to leave Rome for
recreation; he therefore made the tour of Greece and Asia Minor, which
every fashionable and cultivated man was supposed to do. Yet he did not
abandon himself to the pleasures of cities more fascinating than Rome
itself, but pursued his studies in rhetoric and philosophy under eminent
masters, or "professors" as we should now call them. He remained abroad
two years, returning when he was thirty years of age and settling down
in his profession, taking at first but little part in politics. He
married Terentia, with whom he lived happily for thirty years.

But the Roman lawyer was essentially a politician, looking ultimately to
political office, since only through the great public offices could he
enter the Senate,--the object of ambition to all distinguished Romans,
as a seat in Parliament is the goal of an Englishman. The Roman lawyer
did not receive fees, like modern lawyers, but derived his support from
presents and legacies. When he became a political leader, a man of
influence with the great, h