is, however, sufficient evidence that the father paid great
attention to the education of his sons--if, in the case of Marcus, any
evidence were wanting where the result is so manifest by the work of his
life. At a very early age, probably when he was eight--in the year which
produced Julius Caesar--he was sent to Rome, and there was devoted to
studies which from the first were intended to fit him for public life.
Middleton says that the father lived in Rome with his son, and argues
from this that he was a man of large means. But Cicero gives no
authority for this. It is more probable that he lived at the house of
one Aculeo, who had married his mother's sister, and had sons with whom
Cicero was educated. Stories are told of his precocious talents and
performances such as we are accustomed to hear of many remarkable
men--not unfrequently from their own mouths. It is said of him that he
was intimate with the two great advocates of the time, Lucius Crassus
and Marcus Antonius the orator, the grandfather of Cicero's future
enemy, whom we know as Marc Antony. Cicero speaks of them both as though
he had seen them and talked much of them in his youth. He tells us
anecdotes of them;[33] how they were both accustomed to conceal their
knowledge of Greek, fancying that the people in whose eyes they were
anxious to shine would think more of them if they seemed to have
contented themselves simply with Roman words and Roman thoughts. But the
intimacy was probably that which a lad now is apt to feel that he has
enjoyed with a great man, if he has seen and heard him, and perhaps been
taken by the hand. He himself gives in very plain language an account of
his own studies when he was seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen. He speaks
of the orators of that day[34]: "When I was above all things anxious to
listen to these men, the banishment of Cotta was a great sorrow to me. I
was passionately intent on hearing those who were left, daily writing,
reading, and making notes. Nor was I content only with practice in the
art of speaking. In the following year Varius had to go, condemned by
his own enactment; and at this time, in working at the civil law, I gave
much of my time to Quintus Scaevola, the son of Publius, who, though he
took no pupils, by explaining points to those who consulted him, gave
great assistance to students. The year after, when Sulla and Pompey were
Consuls, I learned what oratory really means by listening to Publius
Sulpicius