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74 B.C. grain to the capital. I had been obliging to the dealers, fair to the merchants, liberal to the country people, scrupulous towards our allies, and all agreed that I had been faithful in every duty of my office. The Sicilians had devised compliments for me quite out of the common. And so I returned home in the expectation that the Roman people would come and lay the world at my feet. But it so happened that in the course of my journey I arrived at Puteoli, in the height of the season when it was full of persons of the first fashion. Well, gentlemen, you might have knocked me down with a feather when one of these came up and asked, on what day I had left Rome and what was the last news there? 'I am returning,' I replied, 'from my province.' 'O yes, of course' says he, 'from Africa, I think.' Utterly vexed and disgusted, I said, 'No, from Sicily.' Then another, who wished to play the well-informed man, put in: 'What, don't you know,' says he, 'that our friend here has been quæstor at Syracuse?' Not to make a long story of it, I pocketed my vexation, and lost myself among the crowd of those who had come to take the waters."

Cicero was thirty-two years of age when, after this adventure, he returned once more to Rome in the year 74 B.C. As a senator, it was time for him to choose a side and to make his influence felt in the affairs of state. To gain a clear conception of the political arena on which Cicero is now entering, it will be necessary to consider what were the parties and who the statesmen with whom he was to be engaged.