house of one Acaleo, who had married his mother's sister, and had sons
with whom Cicero was educated. Stories are told of his precocious
talents and performances such as we are accustomed to hear of many
remarkable men--not unfrequently from their own mouths. It is said of
him that he was intimate with the two great advocates of the time,
Lucius Crassus and Marcus Antonius the orator, the grandfather of
Cicero's future enemy, whom we know as Marc Antony. Cicero speaks of
them both as though he had seen them and talked much of them in
his youth. He tells us anecdotes of them;[33] how they were both
accustomed to conceal their knowledge of Greek, fancying that the
people in whose eyes they were anxious to shine would think more of
them if they seemed to have contented themselves simply with Roman
words and Roman thoughts. But the intimacy was probably that which a
lad now is apt to feel that he has enjoyed with a great man, if he has
seen and heard him, and perhaps been taken by the hand. He himself
gives in very plain language an account of his own studies when he was
seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen. He speaks of the orators of that
day[34]: "When I was above all things anxious to listen to these men,
the banishment of Cotta was a great sorrow to me. I was passionately
intent on hearing those who were left, daily writing, reading, and
making notes. Nor was I content only with practice in the art of
speaking. In the following year Varius had to go, condemned by his own
enactment; and at this time, in working at the civil law, I gave much
of my time to Quintus Scaevola, the son of Publius, who, though he
took no pupils, by explaining points to those who consulted him, gave
great assistance to students. The year after, when Sulla and Pompey
were Consuls, I learned what oratory really means by listening to
Publius Sulpicius, who as tribune was daily making harangues. It
was then that Philo, the Chief of the Academy, with other leading
philosophers of Athens, had been put to flight by the war with