is lower office in
Sicily, was marked by a probity and honesty quite exceptional in a Roman
governor. His emoluments, confined strictly within the legal bounds,
would be only moderate, and, whatever they were, came too late in
his life to be any explanation of his earlier expenditure. He received
many valuable legacies, at different times, from personal friends or
grateful clients who died childless (be it remembered how the barrenness
of the marriage union had become then, at Rome, as it is said to be in
some countries now, the reproach of a sensual and effete aristocracy); he
boasts himself, in one of his 'Philippics', that he had received from this
source above L170,000. Mr. Forsyth also notices the large presents that
were made by foreign kings and states to conciliate the support and
advocacy of the leading men at Rome--"we can hardly call them bribes, for
in many cases the relation of patron and client was avowedly established
between a foreign state and some influential Roman: and it became his
duty, as of course it was his interest, to defend it in the Senate and
before the people". In this way, he thinks, Cicero held "retainers" from
Dyrrachium; and, he might have added, from Sicily. The great orator's own
boast was, that he never took anything for his services as an advocate;
and, indeed, such payments were forbidden by law.[1] But with all respect
for Cicero's material honesty, one learns from his letters, unfortunately,
not to put implicit confidence in him when he is in a boasting vein; and
he might not look upon voluntary gifts, after a cause was decided, in the
light of payment. Paetus, one of his clients, gave him a valuable library
of books; and one cannot believe that this was a solitary instance of
the quiet evasion of the Cincian law, or that there were not other
transactions of the same nature which never found their way into any
letter of Cicero's that was likely to come down to us.

[Footnote 1: The principle passed, like so many others, from the old Roman
law into our own, so that to this very day, a barrister's fees, being
considered in the nature of an _honorarium_, or voluntary present
made to him for his services, are not recoverable by law.]

CHAPTER IV.

HIS EXILE AND RETURN.

We must return to Rome. Cicero had never left it but for his short
occasional holiday. Though no longer in office, the ex-consul was still
one of the foremost public men, and his late dignity gave him impor