And it is of power and the man that I shall sing. By power I mean official, political power-what we know in Latin as imperium-the power of life and death, as vested by the state in an individual. Many hundreds of men have sought this power, but Cicero was unique in the history of the republic in that he pursued it with no resources to help him apart from his own talent. He was not, unlike Metellus or Hortensius, from one of the great aristocratic families, with generations of political favors to draw on at election time. He had no mighty army to back up his candidacy, as did Pompey or Caesar. He did not have Crassus’s vast fortune to smooth his path. All he had was his voice-and by sheer effort of will he turned it into the most famous voice in the world.

I WAS TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD when I entered his service. He was twenty-seven. I was a household slave, born on the family estate in the hills near Arpinum, who had never even seen Rome. He was a young advocate, suffering from nervous exhaustion, and struggling to overcome considerable natural disabilities. Few would have wagered much on either of our chances.

Cicero ’s voice at this time was not the fearsome instrument it later became, but harsh and occasionally prone to stutter. I believe the problem was that he had so many words teeming in his head that at moments of stress they jammed in his throat, as when a pair of sheep, pressed by the flock behind them, try at the same time to squeeze through a gate. In any case, these words were often too highfalutin for his audience to grasp. “The Scholar,” his restless listeners used to call him, or “the Greek”-and the terms were not meant as compliments. Although no one doubted his talent for oratory, his frame was too weak to carry his ambition, and the strain on his vocal cords of several hours’ advocacy, often in the open air and in all seasons, could leave him rasping and voiceless for days. Chronic insomnia and poor digestion added to his woes. To put it bluntly, if he was to rise in politics, as he desperately wished to do, he needed professional help. He therefore decided to spend some time away from Rome, traveling both to refresh his mind and to consult the leading teachers of rhetoric, most of whom lived in Greece and Asia Minor.