Treatises on Friendship and Old Age | Page 3

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Prepared by David Reed [email protected] or [email protected]

Treatises on Friendship and Old Age
by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Translated by E S Shuckburgh

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, the greatest of Roman orators and the
chief master of Latin prose style, was born at Arpinum, Jan. 3,106 B.C.
His father, who was a man of property and belonged to the class of the
"Knights," moved to Rome when Cicero was a child; and the future
statesman received an elaborate education in rhetoric, law, and
philosophy, studying and practising under some of the most noted
teachers of the time. He began his career as an advocate at the age of
twenty-five, and almost immediately came to be recognized not only as
a man of brilliant talents but also as a courageous upholder of justice in
the face of grave political danger. After two years of practice he left
Rome to travel in Greece and Asia, taking all the opportunities that
offered to study his art under distinguished masters. He returned to
Rome greatly improved in health and in professional skill, and in 76 B.
C. was elected to the office of quaestor. He was assigned to the
province of Lilybarum in Sicily, and the vigor and justice of his
administration earned him the gratitude of the inhabitants. It was at
their request that he undertook in 70 B. C. the Prosecution of Verres,
who as Praetor had subjected the Sicilians to incredible extortion and
oppression; and his successful conduct of this case, which ended in the

conviction and banishment of Verres, may be said to have launched
him on his political career. He became aedile in the same year, in 67
B.C. praetor, and in 64 B. C. was elected consul by a large majority.
The most important event of the year of his consulship was the
conspiracy of Catiline. This notorious criminal of patrician rank had
conspired with a number of others, many of them young men of high
birth but dissipated character, to seize the chief offices of the state, and
to extricate themselves from the pecuniary and other difficulties that
had resulted from their excesses, by the wholesale plunder of the city.
The plot was unmasked by the vigilance of Cicero, five of the traitors
were summarily executed, and in the overthrow of the army that had
been gathered in their support Catiline himself perished. Cicero
regarded himself as the savior of his country, and his country for the
moment seemed to give grateful assent.
But