Lives; Aristides, Marcus Cato, Demosthenes, Cicero, Lycurgus, Numa Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... CICERO I. Cicero's mother, they say, was Helvia, a woman of noble birth and noble life. As to his father, nothing free from the taint of exaggeration can be ascertained. According to some accounts, he was born and reared in a fuller's shop1: others ascribe the origin of the family to Tullius Attius, the famous King of the Volsci, who waged war, not without success, against the Romans. The first member of this house, however, who received the surname of Cicero, seems to have been a man worthy of regard, since his descendants not only refused to discard the name, but even took a pride in it, although it was frequently ridiculed. The Latins call a chick-pea Cicer: and the original Cicero, as it appears, had, at the point of the nose, a slight cleft like that of a chick-pea, from which peculiarity he obtained his surname.2 The Cicero about whom this book is written, when his friends advised him, upon his first taking office and entering a public career, to drop this name and take another, is said to have replied with youthful ardour that he would do his best to prove that Cicero was a more distinguished name than Scaurus or Catulus. During his quaestorship in Sicily he dedicated to the gods a vessel of silver, upon which he had his first two names, Marcus Tullius, engraved. In place of the third he playfully ordered the engraver to carve a chick-pea in relief beside the engraved character. So much then history tells us about his name. 1 Furius Calenus, a partisan of Antonius, is the first to say, Cicero's father was a fuller. Cicero himself (Laws II. i.) says that his father, a chronic invalid, always lived on his estate at Arpinum, engaged in literary pursuits. 2 Pliny the Elder states that the name "Cicero" meant a grower of peas: cf....