Sicily, Spain, or Asia, and then at last come back a rich man, rich
enough to cope with all his creditors, and to bribe the judges should
he be accused for his misdeeds--these were the usual steps to take by
enterprising Romans toward power, wealth, and enjoyment. But it will be
observed, in this sequence of circumstances, the robbery of the province
was essential to success. This was sometimes done after so magnificent
a fashion as to have become an immortal fact in history. The instance of
Verres will be narrated in the next chapter but one. Something of
moderation was more general, so that the fleeced provincial might still
live, and prefer sufferance to the doubtful chances of recovery. A Pro-
consul might rob a great deal, and still return with hands apparently
clean, bringing with him a score of provincial Deputies to laud his
goodness before the citizens at home. But Cicero robbed not at all.
Even they who have been most hard upon his name, accusing him of
insincerity and sometimes of want of patriotism, because his Roman
mode of declaring himself without reserve in his letters has been
perpetuated for us by the excellence of their language, even they have
acknowledged that he kept his hands studiously clean in the service of
his country, when to have clean hands was so peculiar as to be regarded
as absurd.

There were other means in which a noble Roman might make money, and
might do so without leaving the city. An orator might be paid for his
services as an advocate. Cicero, had such a trade been opened to him,
might have made almost any sum to which his imagination could have
stretched itself. Such a trade was carried on to a very great extent.
It was illegal, such payment having been forbidden by the "Lex Cincia
De Muneribus," passed more than a century before Cicero began his
pleadings.[78] But the law had become a dead letter in the majority
of cases. There can be no doubt that Hortensius, the predecessor and