The renown, however, of all preceding orators, was now about to be eclipsed at Rome; and Hortensius burst forth in eloquence at once calculated to delight and astonish his fellow-citizens. This celebrated orator was born in the year 640, being thus ten years younger than Cotta and Sulpicius. His first appearance in the Forum was at the early age of nineteen—that is, in 659; and his excellence, says Cicero, was immediately acknowledged, like that of a statue by Phidias, which only requires to be seen in order to be admired(254). The case in which he first appeared was of considerable responsibility for one so young and inexperienced, being an accusation, at the instance of the Roman province of Africa, against its governors for rapacity. It was heard before Scævola and Crassus, as judges—the one the ablest lawyer, the other the most accomplished speaker, of his age; and the young orator had the good fortune to obtain their approbation, as well as that of all who were present at the trial(255). His next pleading of importance was in behalf of Nicomedes, King of Bithynia, in which he even surpassed his former speech for the Africans(256). After this we hear little of him for several years. The imminent perils of the Social War, which broke out in 663, interrupted, in a great measure, the business of the Forum. Hortensius served in this alarming contest for one year as a volunteer, and in the following season as a military tribune(257). When, on the re-establishment of peace in Italy in 666, he returned to Rome, and resumed the more peaceful avocations to which he had been destined from his youth, he found himself without a rival(258). Crassus, as we have seen, died in 662, before the troubles of Marius and Sylla. Antony, with other orators of inferior note, perished in 666, during the temporary and last ascendancy of Marius, in the absence of Sylla. Sulpicius was put to death in the same year, and Cotta driven into banishment, from which he was not recalled until the return of Sylla to Rome, and his election to the dictatorship in 670. Hortensius was thus left for some years without a competitor; and, after 670, with none of eminence but Cotta, whom also he soon outshone. His splendid, warm, and animated manner, was preferred to the calm and easy elegance of his rival. Accordingly, when engaged in a cause on the same side, Cotta, though ten years senior, was employed to open the case, while the more important parts were left to the management of Hortensius(259). He continued the undisputed sovereign of the Forum, till Cicero returned from his quæstorship in Sicily, in 679, when the talents of that orator first displayed themselves in full perfection and maturity. Hortensius was thus, from 666 till 679, a space of thirteen years, at the head of the Roman bar; and being, in consequence, engaged during that long period, on one side or other, in every cause of importance, he soon amassed a prodigious fortune.