that which we know to have been incident to the life
he led. But we do not know what were his father’s
means. Seeing the nature of the education given
to the lad, of the manner in which his future life
was prepared for him from his earliest days, of the
promise made to him from his boyhood of a career in
the metropolis if he could make himself fit for it,
of the advantages which costly travel afforded him,
I think we have reason to suppose that the old Cicero
was an opulent man, and that the house at Arpinum
was no humble farm, or fuller’s poor establishment.
[31] Hor., lib.i., Ode xxii.,
“Non rura qua; Liris
quicta
Mordet aqua taciturnus amnis.”
[32] Such was the presumed condition of things at
Rome. By the passing of a special law a plebeian
might, and occasionally did, become patrician.
The patricians had so nearly died out in the time of
Julius Caesar that he introduced fifty new families
by the Lex Cassia.
[33] De Orat., lib.ii., ca.1.
[34] Brutus, ca.lxxxix.
[35] It should be remembered that in Latin literature
it was the recognized practice of authors to borrow
wholesale from the Greek, and that no charge of plagiarism
attended such borrowing. Virgil, in taking thoughts
and language from Homer, was simply supposed to have
shown his judgment in accommodating Greek delights
to Roman ears and Roman intellects.
The idea as to literary larceny is of later date,
and has grown up with personal claims for originality
and with copyright. Shakspeare did not acknowledge
whence he took his plots, because it was unnecessary.
Now, if a writer borrow a tale from the French, it
is held that he ought at least to owe the obligation,
or perhaps even pay for it.
[36] Juvenal, Sat.x., 122,
“O fortunatum natam
me Consule Romam!
Antoni gladios potuit contemnere,
si sic
Omnia dixisset.”
[37] De Leg., lib.i., ca.1.
[38] Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham, written
by himself, vol.i., p. 58.
[39] I give the nine versions to which I allude in
an Appendix A, at the end of this volume, so that
those curious in such matters may compare the words
in which the same picture has been drawn by various
hands.
[40] Pro Archia, ca.vii.
[41] Brutus, ca.xc.
[42] Tacitus, De Oratoribus, xxx.
[43] Quintilian, lib. xii., c. vi., who wrote about
the same time as this essayist, tells us of these
three instances of early oratory, not, however, specifying
the exact age in either case. He also reminds
us that Demosthenes pleaded when he was a boy, and
that Augustus at the age of twelve made a public harangue
in honor of his grandmother.
[44] Brutus, ca.xc.
[45] Brutus, xci.
[46] Quintilian, lib. xii., vi.: “Quum
jam clarum meruisset inter patronos, qui tum erant,
nomen, in Asiam navigavit, seque et aliis sine dubio
eloquentiae ae sapientiae magistris, sed praecipue
tamen Apollonio Moloni, quem Romae quoque audierat,
Rhodi rursus formandum ae velut recognendum dedit”.
