mother was one Helvia, of whom we are told that she was well-born and
rich. Cicero himself never alludes to her--as neither, if I remember
rightly, did Horace to his mother, though he speaks so frequently of
his father. Helvia's younger son, Quintus, tells a story of his mother
in a letter, which has been, by chance, preserved among those written
by our Cicero. She was in the habit of sealing up the empty wine-jars,
as well as those which were full, so that a jar emptied on the sly by
a guzzling slave might be at once known. This is told in a letter to
Tiro, a favorite slave belonging to Marcus, of whom we shall hear
often in the course of our work. As the old lady sealed up the jars,
though they contained no wine, so must Tiro write letters, though he
has nothing to say in them. This kind of argument, taken from the old
familiar stories of one's childhood and one's parents, could be only
used to a dear and familiar friend. Such was Tiro, though still a
slave, to the two brothers. Roman life admitted of such friendships,
though the slave was so completely the creature of the master that his
life and death were at the master's disposal.

This is nearly all that is known of Cicero's father and mother, or of
his old home.

There is, however, sufficient evidence that the father paid great
attention to the education of his sons--if, in the case of Marcus, any
evidence were wanting where the result is so manifest by the work of
his life. At a very early age, probably when he was eight--in the
year which produced Julius Caasar--he was sent to Rome, and there was
devoted to studies which from the first were intended to fit him for
public life. Middleton says that the father lived in Rome with his
son, and argues from this that he was a man of large means. But Cicero
gives no authority for this. It is more probable that he lived at the