It is thus that Cicero himself speaks of his journey: "Now," he says, still in his Brutus[47], "as you wish to know what I am--not simply what mark I may have on my body from my birth, or with what surroundings of childhood I was brought up--I will include some details which might perhaps seem hardly necessary.

At this time I was thin and weak, my neck being long and narrow--a habit and form of body which is supposed to be adverse to long life; and those who loved me thought the more of this, because I had taken to speaking without relaxation, without recreation with all the powers of my voice, and with much muscular action.

When my friends and the doctors desired me to give up speaking, I resolved that, rather than abandon my career as an orator, I would face any danger.

But when it occurred to me that by lowering my voice, by changing my method of speaking, I might avoid the danger, and at the same time learn to speak with more elegance, I accepted that as a reason for going into Asia, so that I might study how to change my mode of elocution.

Thus, when I had been two years at work upon causes, and when my name was already well known in the Forum, I took my departure, and left Rome." During the six months that he was at Athens he renewed an early acquaintance with one who was destined to become the most faithful, and certainly the best known, of his friends.