Note 935 — Chapter III · (691-695.)

They called new men those who amongst their ancestors counted none that had held a high magistracy. (Appian, Civil Wars, II. 2.)—Cicero also confirms this fact: “I am the first new man that, for a great number of years, is remembered to have been appointed consul; and this eminent post, in which the nobility were in a manner entrenched, and to which they had closed all the avenues, you have, to place me at your head, forced the barriers; you have desired that merit henceforth find them open.” (Cicero, Second Oration on the Agrarian Law, 1.)