Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/100

78 Now, the young Marcus, at the age of six, claims a line at the end of his father's letter to show off his first Greek writing in a postscript, "Cicero the small sends his love to Titus the Athenian," or "Cicero the philosopher sends his love to Titus the statesman."

Quintus the younger brother of Marcus Cicero followed his example in adopting the senatorial career, and rose to the prætorship. He had some pretensions to be a man of letters, and wrote Greek tragedies while campaigning in Gaul and Britain; but nature had meant him for a soldier rather than for a student or for a statesman. His frank and affectionate nature was marred by a passionate and hasty temper, and the possession of great office did not awaken him to any high sense of duty or responsibility. Marcus Cicero perhaps somewhat abuses an elder brother's privilege of pointing out to him the error of his ways, and Quintus in turn sometimes chafes under the lecture; but in spite of this the brothers heartily loved one another. Quintus married Pomponia the sister of Atticus, and had by her one son named after his father. This "Quintus the son" was spoiled, so his uncle thought, by the over-indulgence of his parents. He died nobly in the end, but his conduct as he emerged from boyhood was anything but satisfactory. Cicero always felt himself .responsible for the behaviour of his brother and his nephew and was ever in a fidget