CHAPTER II.
_HIS EDUCATION._ At Arpinum, on the river Liris, a little stream which has been made to sound sweetly in our ears by Horace,[31] in a villa residence near the town, Marcus Tullius Cicero was born, 106 years before Christ, on the 3d of January, according to the calendar then in use.

Pompey the Great was born in the same year.

Arpinum was a State which had been admitted into Roman citizenship, lying between Rome and Capua, just within that portion of Italy which was till the other day called the Kingdom of Naples.

The district from which he came is noted, also, as having given birth to Marius.

Cicero was of an equestrian family, which means as much as though we were to say among ourselves that a man had been born a gentleman and nothing more.