M. FADIUS GALLUS, the Epicurean, and M. MARIUS, the valetudinarian and wit, were among friends valued for their personal and agreeable qualities rather than for any public or political importance attaching to them. The same may be said of L. LUCCEIUS, of whose Roman history Cicero thought so well, that he wrote a remarkable letter begging for an honourable place in it for his consulship, as Pliny did to Tacitus.[22] C. SCRIBONIUS CURIO, son of a great friend of Cicero, after a _jeunesse orageuse_, returned to Rome from his quæstorship in Asia, in B.C. 53, to take up the inheritance of his father, which he quickly dissipated. Cicero seems to have had a high idea of his abilities, and to have believed him capable of taking the lead of the Optimates. But in his tribuneship of B.C. 51-50 he disappointed all such hopes by openly joining Cæsar's party, and resisting all attempts to recall him. He joined Cæsar at Ravenna as soon as his tribuneship was out, and urged him to march on Rome. In B.C. 49 he was sent to secure Sicily and Africa. The first he did, but in the second he perished in battle against the senatorial governor and king Iuba. Cicero's relation to C. TREBATIUS TESTA, a learned jurisconsult, was apparently that of a patron or tutor, who, thinking that he has found a young man of ability, endeavours to push him. He sent him with a letter of introduction to Cæsar, who was good-natured, though rather sarcastic as to the scope for legal abilities to be found in Gaul. He gave him, however, a military tribuneship, without exacting military duties, and apparently kept on good terms with him, for he employed him in B.C. 49 to communicate his wish to Cicero as to his remaining at Rome. Cicero's letters to him, though numerous, are not among the most interesting. They are full of banter of a rather forced and dull kind; and Cicero was evidently annoyed to find that his scheme for advancing Trebatius in Cæsar's province had not been very successful. The friendship, however, survived the civil war, and we find Cicero in B.C. 44 dedicating his _Topica_ to Trebatius. [Footnote 1: That Cicero up to the time of his consulship had been connected rather with the _populares_ is illustrated by Quintus (_de Petit._ i.) urging him to make it clear that he had never been a demagogue, but that if he had ever spoken "in the spirit of the popular party, he had done so with the view of attracting Pompey."] [Footnote 2: _De Orat._ ii. §§ 1, 2.] [Footnote 3: "The city, the city, my dear Rufus--stick to that, and live in its full light. Residence elsewhere--as I made up my mind early in life--is mere eclipse and obscurity to those whose energy is capable of shining at Rome."--_Fam._ ii. 12 (vol. ii., p. 166).] [Footnote 4: Even at these he found troublesome people to interrupt him. See vol. i., pp. 102, 104.]