Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/55

Rh

families, whose members were now Romans, but Romans without ancestral nobility; not belonging by birth to the official caste, these naturally found their place in the second order of the State.

The Roman Knights, not being personally engaged in politics, sought their spokesmen and representatives among those members of the senatorial order who were most in sympathy with their feelings and interests. At this time their most prominent champion was Marcus Licinius Crassus, a man of high nobility and now in the prime of life. He had fought on the side of Sulla in the Civil War, but he had no loyalty to his caste; as the richest man in Rome and the foremost in all lucrative speculations, he was the natural representative of the capitalists and bankers. Cicero himself was fast rising into the position of a second leader of the party. He had fully resolved to win his way by his own talents and energy to the highest grade in the State. For the last three generations only one "new man" had succeeded in attaining the consulship, and this one was his fellow-townsman, Caius Marius. In aspiring to reach the same goal Cicero must necessarily offend all the proprieties of good society, and must be sure that the ruling families would exert themselves to exclude him. He describes the struggle as he looks back on it in the inaugural speech of his consulship. "I am the first 'new man' whom you have raised to the consulship after an interval which reaches back almost beyond our recollection and the present generation; I have