Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/48

 40 CICERO. attention to the instructions, sometimes of Roscius the comedian, and sometimes of ^sop the tragedian. They tell of this ^sop, that whilst he was representing on the theatre Atreus deliberating the revenge of Thyestes, he was so transported beyond himself in the heat of action, that he struck with his sceptre one of the servants, who was running across the stage, so violently, that he laid him dead upon the place. And such afterwards was Cicero's delivery, that it did not a little contribute to render his eloquence persuasive. He iised to ridicule loud speakers, saying that they shouted because they could not speak, like lame men who get on horseback because they cannot walk. And his readiness and address in sarcasm, and gen- erally in witty sayings, was thought to suit a pleader very well, and to be highly attractive, but his using it to excess offended many, and gave him the repute of ill nature. He was appointed quasstor in a great scarcity of corn, and had Sicily for his pi'ovince, where, though at first he displeased many, by compelling them to send in their provisions to Rome, yet after they had had experience of his care, justice, and clemency, they honored him more than ever they did any of their governors before. It happened, also, that some young Romans of good and no- ble families, charged with neglect of discipline and mis- conduct in military service, were brought before the prjBtor in Sicily. Cicero undertook their defence, which he conducted admirably, and got them acquitted. So returning to Rome with a great opinion of himself for these things, a ludicrous incident befell him, as he tells us himself Meeting an eminent citizen in Campania, whom he accounted his friend, he asked him what the Romans said and thought of his actions, as if the whole city had been filled with the glory of what he had done. His friend asked him in reply, " Where is it you have been.