is presents were enormous. Cicero
acknowledged, late in life, to have received what would now be equal to
more than a million of dollars from legacies alone. The great political
leaders and orators were the stipendiaries of Eastern princes and nobles
who wanted favors from the Senate, and who knew as well how to reward
such services as do the railway kings in our times.

Before Cicero, then, could be a Senator, he must pass through those
great public offices which were in the gift of the people. The first
step on the ladder of advancement was the office of quaestor, which
entailed the duty of collecting revenues in one of the provinces. This
office he was sufficiently influential to secure, being sent to Sicily,
where he distinguished himself for his activity and integrity. At the
end of a year he renewed his practice in the courts at Rome,--being
hardly anything more than a mere lawyer for five years, when he was
elected an Aedile, to whom the care of the public buildings was
intrusted.

It was while he was aedile-elect that Cicero appeared as the public
prosecutor of Verres. This was one of the great cases of antiquity, and
the one from which the orator's public career fairly dates. His
residence in Sicily had prepared him for this duty; and he secured the
conviction of this great criminal, whose peculations and corruptions
would amaze our modern New Yorkers and all the "rings" of our great
cities combined. But the Praetor of Sicily was a provincial
governor,--more like Warren Hastings than Tweed. For this public service
Cicero gained more _eclat_ than Burke did for his prosecution of
Hastings; since Hastings, though a corrupt man, laid, after Clive, the
foundation of the English empire in India, and was a man of immense
talents,--greater than those of any who has since filled his place.
Hence the nation screened Hastings. But Verres had no virtues and no
great abilities; he was an outrageous public robber, and hoped, from his
wealth and powerful connections, to purchase immunity for his crimes. In
the hands of such an orator as Cicero he could not escape the penalty of
the law, powerful as he was, even at Rome. This case placed Cicero above
Hortensius, hitherto the leader of the Roman bar.

It was at this period that the extant correspondence of Cicero began,
which is the best picture we have of the manners and habits of the Roman
aristocracy at the time. History could scarcely spare those famous
letters, especial