security to offer but the promise of their
future career. Caesar's debts during various times of his life were
proverbial. He is said to have owed over L300,000 before he reached his
first step in the public employment. Cicero rushed into no such danger
as this. We know, indeed, that when the time came to him for public
expenditure on a great scale, as, for instance, when he was filling the
office of AEdile, he kept within bounds, and he did not lavish money
which he did not possess. We know also that he refrained, altogether
refrained, from the iniquitous habits of making large fortunes which
were open to the great politicians of the Republic. To be Quaestor that
he might be AEdile, AEdile that he might be Praetor and Consul, and Praetor
and Consul that he might rob a province--pillage Sicily, Spain, or Asia,
and then at last come back a rich man, rich enough to cope with all his
creditors, and to bribe the judges should he be accused for his
misdeeds--these were the usual steps to take by enterprising Romans
toward power, wealth, and enjoyment. But it will be observed, in this
sequence of circumstances, the robbery of the province was essential to
success. This was sometimes done after so magnificent a fashion as to
have become an immortal fact in history. The instance of Verres will be
narrated in the next chapter but one. Something of moderation was more
general, so that the fleeced provincial might still live, and prefer
sufferance to the doubtful chances of recovery. A Proconsul might rob a
great deal, and still return with hands apparently clean, bringing with
him a score of provincial Deputies to laud his goodness before the
citizens at home. But Cicero robbed not at all. Even they who have been
most hard upon his name, accusing him of insincerity and sometimes of
want of patriotism, because his Roman mode of declaring himself without
reserve in his letters has been perpetuated for us by the excellence of
their language, even they have acknowledged that he kept his hands
studiously clean in the service of his country, when to have clean hands
was so peculiar as to be regarded as absurd.

There were other means in which a noble Roman might make money, and
might do so without leaving the city. An orator might be paid for his
services as an advocate. Cicero, had such a trade been opened to him,
might have made almost any sum to which his imagination could have
stretched itself. Such a trade was carried on to a very