If there is any natural ability in me, O judges,—and I know how slight that is; or
if I have any practice as a speaker,—and in that line I do not deny that I have some
experience; or if I have any method in my oratory, drawn from my study of the liberal
sciences, and from that careful training to which I admit that at no part of my life have I
ever been disinclined; certainly, of all those qualities, this Aulus Licinius is entitled to
be among the first to claim the benefit from me as his peculiar right. For as far as ever my
mind can look back upon the space of time that is past, and recall the memory of its earliest
youth, tracing my life from that starting-point, I see that Archias was the principal cause of
my undertaking, and the principal means of my mastering, those studies. And if this voice of
mine, formed by his encouragement and his precepts, has at times been the instrument of safety
to others, undoubtedly we ought, as far as lies in our power, to help and save the very man
from whom we have received that gift which has enabled us to bring help to many and salvation
to some.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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