pleasant not to be readily admitted". The boy gave his father some trouble
in after life. He served with some credit as an officer of cavalry under
Pompey in Greece, or at least got into no trouble there. Some years after,
he wished to take service in Spain, under Caesar, against the sons
of Pompey; but the father did not approve of this change of side. He
persuaded him to go to Athens to study instead, allowing him what both
Atticus and himself thought a very liberal income--not sufficient,
however, for him to keep a horse, which Cicero held to be an unnecessary
luxury. Probably the young cavalry officer might not have been of the same
opinion; at any rate, he got into more trouble among the philosophers than
he did in the army. He spent a great deal more than his allowance, and one
of the professors, whose lectures he attended, had the credit of helping
him to spend it. The young man must have shared the kindly disposition
of his father. He wrote a confidential letter to Tiro, the old family
servant, showing very good feeling, and promising reformation. It is
doubtful how far the promise was kept. He rose, however, subsequently to
place and power under Augustus, but died without issue; and, so far at
least as history knows them, the line of the Ciceros was extinct. It had
flashed into fame with the great orator, and died out with him.

[Footnote 1: "Interia dulces pendent circum oscula nati; Casta pudicitiam
servat domus".--Georg. ii. 524.]

[Footnote 2: See 'Letters to Atticus', ii. 9, 12; Merivale's translation
of Abeken's 'Cicero in Seinen Briefen', p. 114.]

All Cicero's biographers have found considerable difficulty in tracing, at
all satisfactorily, the sources of the magnificent fortune which must have
been required to keep up, and to embellish in accordance with so luxurious
a taste, so many residences in all parts of the country. True, these