We know him in his most brilliant light from Cicero himself, the very man whom he hated above all others: for he says of him, that he had a magic power by which he fascinated and enslaved all who came near him; that it was not uncommon for young people, having been attracted by his gigantic qualities, to attach themselves to him; and that whoever had once been within his reach, had never been able to get out of his clutches. Cicero himself had defended Catiline before a court of justice. Catiline had been an officer of high rank under Sylla, and afterwards prætor, and an action (_repetundarum_) was brought against him from which he had a very narrow escape: it may have been on this occasion that Cicero was his advocate. On the whole, people had their eyes upon him, and his designs were dreaded, though no one had the courage to face him: it was believed that he would burn and pillage, if he once got into power. The most opposite characters, even many of Sylla’s partisans, were convinced that they, just as well as any one else, would fall his victims. Cicero now stood for the consulship. Yet though his integrity and his transcendent talents commanded general esteem, his prospects were but poor. With the people indeed, he was a great favourite; but the men of rank opposed him as a _homo novus_; prætor he had been already. The well-grounded news, however, that Catiline and the conspirators meant to murder the candidates for the consulship, and the belief that there was no preventing the election of C. Antonius, an uncle of the triumvir, who was greatly suspected of a connexion with Catiline, induced the nobles to declare for Cicero. Thus he became consul in the year 698. Cicero was born on the 3rd of January, in the year 647 according to Cato (649, according to Varro, which is easier to remember, as it reminds one of the year of Goethe’s birth);[3] he was a native of the municipal town of Arpinum, from which Marius also had come. Arpinum was by no means a small place; on the contrary, for a provincial town in the interior of the country, it was very large and important, and it was also one of those which are called the Cyclopian towns: now indeed it is only a poor place. All the men of Arpinum undoubtedly were proud of Marius, an impression which Cicero had shared from a youth, especially as there was some kind of relationship between his family and that of Marius. His own family was very respectable; in a petty feud in his town, his grandfather was on the side of the _optimates_. His father and grandfather were acquainted with the first families in Rome, and indeed with the enemies of Marius, with Scævola and others of the aristocratical party; so that the discord which runs through the whole life of Cicero, takes its beginning even then. To Marius Gratidianus he was also akin.