lungs had grown stronger, and my bodily frame was moderately filled out."
Cicero was now fully established as one of the leaders of the bar along with Cotta and Hortensius, and was constantly employed in the most important cases. 76 B.C.All three were candidates for office in the year following Cicero's return to Italy. Cotta gained the consulship, Hortensius the office of curule ædile, and Cicero that of quæstor. Under Sulla's constitution twenty quæstors were elected for each year, and each quæstor when his term of magistracy was over passed on to the benches of the Senate, where he had now a seat for life. 75 B.C.Meanwhile Cicero's official duties sent him to spend the year 75 outside of Italy. The lot gave him as his province the western portion of Sicily with Lilybæum for his headquarters. The other side of the island (though one prætor ruled the whole) had a separate quæstor who resided at Syracuse. It is necessary to make this point clear for the understanding of an amusing anecdote, which Cicero[1] tells against himself by way of illustrating to a jury the small attention paid in the capital to provincial concerns and provincial reputations. The experience is one which many an Indian Commissioner will recognise with a sigh.
"Now, gentlemen, I will make a clean breast of it, 74 B.C.and confess that I thought at the time that people in Rome were talking of nothing but my quæstorship. During a season of dearth I had forwarded a great supply of- ↑ Pro Plancio, 26, 64.
