Cicero undertook their defence, which he conducted admirably, and
got them acquitted. So returning to Rome with a great opinion of
himself for these things, a ludicrous incident befell him, as he
tells us himself. Meeting an eminent citizen in Campania, whom he
accounted his friend, he asked him what the Romans said and
thought of his actions, as if the whole city had been filled with
the glory of what he had done. His friend asked him in reply,
"Where is it you have been, Cicero?" Utterly mortified and cast
down, he perceived that the report of his actions had sunk into
the city of Rome as into an immense ocean, without any visible
effect or result in reputation.
On beginning to apply himself more resolutely to public business,
he remarked it as unreasonable that artificers, using vessels and
instruments inanimate, should know the name, place, and use of
every one of them, and yet the statesman, whose instruments for
carrying out public measures are men, should be negligent and
careless in the knowledge of persons. And so he not only
acquainted himself with the names, but also knew the very place
where every one of the more eminent citizens dwelt, what lands he
possessed, his friends and his neighbors, and when he traveled on
any road in Italy, he could readily name and show the estates and
seats of his acquaintances.
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