19. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's
most intimate correspondent, was a Roman knight, who inheriting a
large estate from his father, increased it by contracts, banking,
money-lending, and slave-dealing, in which he was deeply engaged.
He was an accomplished, cultivated man, a shrewd observer of the
times, and careful of committing himself on any side. His acquaintance
with Cicero rested on similarity of temperament, with a solid
financial basis at the bottom of it. They were mutually useful to
each other.
[10] "Et nimium istud est, quod ab hoc tribuno plebis dictum est in
senatu: urbanam plebem nimium in republica posse: exhauriendam esse:
hoc enim verbo est usus; quasi de aliqua sentina, ac non de optimorum
civium genere loqueretur."--_Contra Rullum_, ii. 26.
[11] Cicero, _Pro Murena_, 25.
[12] Murena was afterward prosecuted for bribery at this election. Cicero
defended him; but even Cato, aristocrat as he was, affected to be
shocked at the virtuous consul's undertaking so bad a case. It is
observable that in his speech for Murena, Cicero found as many virtues
in Lucullus as in his speech on the Manilian law he had found vices.
It was another symptom of his change of attitude.
[13] "In loco munitissimo."
[14] This description of the young Roman aristocracy is given by Cicero in
his most powerful vein: "Postremum autem genus est, non solum numero,
verum etiam genere ipso atque vita, quod proprium est Catilinae, de
ejus delectu, immo vero de complexu ejus ac sinu: quos pexo capillo,
nitidos, aut imberbes, aut bene barbatos, videtis, manicatis et
talaribus tunicis; velis amictos, non togis: quorum omnis industria
vitae et vigilandi labor in antelucanis coenis expromitur.
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