At Arpinum, on the river Liris, a little stream which has been made to sound sweetly in our ears by Horace,31 in a villa¹ residence near the town, Marcus Tullius Cicero was born, 106 years before Christ, on the 3d of January, according to the calendar then in use. Pompey the Great was born in the same year. Arpinum was a State which had been admitted into Roman citizenship², lying between Rome and Capua, just within that portion of Italy which was till the other day called the Kingdom of Naples. The district from which he came is noted³, also, as having given birth to Marius. Cicero was of an equestrian⁴ family, which means as much as though we were to say among ourselves that a man had been born a gentleman and nothing more. An "eques" or knight⁵ in Cicero's time became so, or might become so, by being in possession of a certain income. The title conferred no nobility. The plebeian⁶, it will be understood, could not become patrician⁷, though he might become noble—as Cicero did. The patrician must have been born so—must have sprung from the purple of certain fixed⁸ families.32 Cicero was born a plebeian, of equestrian 41rank and became ennobled when he was ranked among the senators because of his service among the high magistrates⁹ of the Republic. As none of his family had served before him, he was "novus homo," a new man, and therefore not noble till he had achieved nobility himself. A man was noble who could reckon a Consul¹⁰, a Pr?tor, or an ?dile among his ancestors. Such was not the case with Cicero. As he filled all these offices, his son was noble—as were his son's sons and grandsons, if such there were.

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