Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/45

71 B.C.] above the little circle of his peers; the offices of the State must be held at fixed intervals, and no man might hold the same office twice except after the lapse of ten years. Free popular election of the magistrates was still allowed. Long experience had shown that this was not really dangerous to the supremacy of the Nobles, and that the influence of the great families would secure them a practical monopoly of the highest offices.

Such was the constitution of the Republic when Cicero became a senator. His bold defence of Roscius had marked him out as a future leader of opposition. Indeed, from his position and circumstances he could not well be otherwise. His sympathies were naturally on the side of the equestrian order from which he had sprung, and that order was now in a state of discontent and hostility to the government. For an explanation we must look back a little in the history.

The Roman Nobility was, as we have seen, a Nobility of office; and public opinion as well as positive law prescribed that this official caste should confine itself to the business of war and government, and should hold aloof from trade and banking, and more especially from speculations connected with state-contracts. All these fell into the hands of another set of families, which constituted in its turn a sort of high mercantile caste. As the armies of Rome spread her power over the shores of the Mediterranean, her commerce increased likewise, and so did the complexity and magnitude of her financial arrangements: all this added to the importance of