merely initiated into the arts of extortion, and enjoyed all the vicious opportunities of the younger sons of princes. Thus fortified by experience he would return to Rome to seek the suffrages of his fellow-citizens for the quæstorship, the first rung on the ladder of office. Votes were to be won by bribery, direct or indirect. One candidate would spread a banquet for a whole tribe; another would seek to outshine his rivals by providing strange beasts from Africa--among Cicero’s correspondence there is an urgent appeal for Cilician panthers to be slain in the arena--or by dressing his gladiators in silver armour. Similar requirements accompanied his progress through all the stages of office on a progressively lavish scale. As quæstor he would be a judge or a comptroller of the treasury for a single year. Then as ædile he would conduct the public festivals, preside in the ædile’s court, control the markets and streets of Rome. So he rose to be consul, commander of legions and president of the state, and then in due course governor of an enormous province. From his quæstorship onwards his seat in the senate was assured. In his home the noble Roman lived like a king, waited upon by an enormous retinue. There was much luxury and little comfort. The houses of the Romans were on a far more luxurious scale than those of the Greeks. The only genuine Roman taste that can be called liberal was the hobby of collecting beautiful town houses and country seats. Cicero, who was a man of modest income and tastes, seems to have possessed about eighteen different estates, and gave nearly £30,000 for his town house. The qualities prized in the choice of a mansion were space and coolness, and the Romans of this age were by no means insensible to the charms of scenery. The coast round Naples and Baiæ was dotted with sumptuous villas, and the gay world spent its summer there in much the same way as the cosmopolitan crowds at Biarritz. Besides his great town house and his family mansion at Arpinum, and his country houses at Tusculum and elsewhere, Cicero had marine villas all along the coast at Antium, Formiæ, Cumæ, Puteoli, and Pompeii, and all along the Campanian road were his private “inns,” where he lodged on his journeys. His favourite villa was the one at Tusculum, the scene of many of his literary labours, and among others of the famous Tusculan Disputations. It had previously belonged to Sulla, and was adorned with paintings in commemoration of Sulla’s victories. It was situated on the top of a hill along with many other villas of the aristocracy, and commanded a delightful view of the city about twelve miles away. The park attached to it was extensive, and through it there ran a broad canal. He had books everywhere, but his principal library was deposited at Antium. At Puteoli he constructed a cloister and a grove on the model of Plato’s Academy.