"Remember," says Quintus, "that your candidature is very strong in that kind of friendship which has been created by your pleadings. Take care that each of those friends shall know what special business is allotted to him on the occasion; and as you have not troubled any of them yet, make them understand that you have reserved for the present moment the payment of their debts." This is all very well; but the next direction mingles so much of business with its truth, that no one but Machiavelli or Quintus Cicero could have expressed it in words. "Men," says Quintus, "are induced to struggle for us in these canvassings by three motives--by memory of kindness done, by the hope of kindness to come, and by community of political conviction. You must see how you are to catch each of these. Small favors will induce a man to canvass for you; and they who owe their safety to your pleadings, for there are many such, are aware that if they do not stand by you now they will be regarded by all the world as sorry fellows. Nevertheless, they should be made to feel that, as they are indebted to you, you will be glad to have an opportunity of becoming indebted to them. But as to those on whom you have a hold only by hope--a class of men very much more numerous, and likely to be very much more active--they are the men whom you should make to understand that your assistance will be always at their command." How severe, how difficult was the work of canvassing in Rome, we learn from these lessons. It was the very essence of a great Roman's life that he should live in public; and to such an extent was this carried that we wonder how such a man as Cicero found time for the real work of his life. The Roman patron was expected to have a levee every morning early in his own house, and was wont, when he went down into the Forum, to be attended by a crowd of parasites. This had become so much a matter of course that a public man would have felt himself deserted had he been left alone either at home or abroad. Rome was full of idlers--of men who got their bread by the favors of the great, who lounged through their lives--political quidnuncs, who made canvassing a trade--men without a conviction, but who believed in the ascendency of this or the other leader, and were ready to fawn or to fight in the streets, as there might be need. These were the Quirites of the day--men who were in truth fattened on the leavings of the plunder which was extracted from the allies; for it was the case now that a Roman was content to live on the industry of those whom his father had conquered. They would still fight in the legions; but the work of Rome was done by slaves, and the wealth of Rome was robbed from the Provinces. Hence it came about that there was a numerous class, to whom the name "assectatores" was given, who of course became specially prominent at elections. Quintus divides all such followers into three kinds, and gives instructions as to the special