Chapter 14

_HIS EXILE._

We now come to that period of Cicero's life in which, by common consent of all who have hitherto written of him, he is supposed to have shown himself as least worthy of his high name. Middleton, who certainly loved his hero's memory and was always anxious to do him justice, condemns him. "It cannot be denied that in this calamity of his exile he did not behave himself with that firmness which might reasonably be expected from one who had borne so glorious a part in the Republic." Morabin, the French biographer, speaks of the wailings of his grief, of its injustice and its follies. "Cicéron était trop plein de son malheur pour donner entrée à de nouvelles espérances," he says. "Il avait supporté ce malheur avec peu de courage," says another Frenchman, M. Du Rozoir, in introducing us to the speeches which Cicero made on his return. Dean Merivale declares that "he marred the grace of the concession in the eyes of posterity"--alluding to the concession made to popular feeling by his voluntary departure from Rome, as will hereafter be described--"by the unmanly lamentations with which he accompanied it." Mommsen, with a want of insight into character wonderful in an author who has so closely studied the history of the period, speaks of his exile as a punishment inflicted on a "man notoriously timid, and belonging to the class of political weather-cocks." "We now come," says Mr. Forsyth, "to the most melancholy period of Cicero's life, melancholy not so much from its nature and the extent of the misfortunes which overtook him, as from the abject prostration of mind into which he was thrown." Mr. Froude, as might be expected, uses language stronger than that of others, and tells us that "he retired to Macedonia to pour out his sorrows and his resentments in lamentations unworthy of a woman." We have to admit that modern historians and biographers have been united in accusing Cicero of want of manliness during his exile. I propose--not, indeed, to wash the blackamoor white--but to show, if I can, that he was as white as others might be expected to have been in similar circumstances.

We are, I think, somewhat proud of the courage shown by public men of our country who have suffered either justly or unjustly under the laws. Our annals are bloody, and many such have had to meet their death. They have done so generally with becoming manliness. Even though they may have been rebels against the powers of the day, their memories have been made green because they have fallen like brave men. Sir Thomas More, who was no rebel, died well, and crowned a good life by his manner of leaving it. Thomas Cromwell submitted to the axe without a complaint. Lady Jane Grey, when on the scaffold, yielded nothing in manliness to the others. Cranmer and the martyr bishops perished nobly. The Earl of Essex, and Raleigh, and Strafford, and Strafford's master showed no fear when the fatal moment came. In reading the fate of each, we sympathize with the victim because of a certain dignity at the moment of death. But there is, I think, no crisis of life in which it is so easy for a man to carry himself honorably as that in which he has to leave it. "Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus." No doubting now can be of avail. No moment is left for the display of conduct beyond this, which requires only decorum and a free use of the pulses to become in some degree glorious. The wretch from the lowest dregs of the people can achieve it with a halter round his neck. Cicero had that moment also to face; and when it came he was as brave as the best Englishman of them all. But of those I have named no one had an Atticus to whom it had been the privilege of his life to open his very soul, in language so charming as to make it worth posterity's while to read it, to study it, to sift it, and to criticise it. Wolsey made many plaints in his misery, but they have reached us in such forms of grace that they do not disparage him; but then he too had no Atticus. Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke were dismissed ministers and doomed to live in exile, the latter for many years, and felt, no doubt, strongly their removal from the glare of public life to obscurity. We hear no complaint from them which can justify some future critic in saying that their wails were unworthy of a woman; but neither of them was capable of telling an Atticus the thoughts of his mind as they rose. What other public man ever had an Atticus to whom, in the sorrows which the ingratitude of friends had brought upon him, he could disclose every throb of his heart?

I think that we are often at a loss, in our efforts at appreciation of character, and in the expressions of our opinion respecting it, to realize the meaning of courage and manliness. That sententious Swedish Queen, one of whose foolish maxims I have quoted, has said that Cicero, though a coward, was capable of great actions, because she did not know what a coward was. To doubt--to tremble with anxiety--to vacillate hither and thither between this course and the other as to which may be the better--to complain within one's own breast that this or that thing has been an injustice--to hesitate within one's self, not quite knowing which way honor may require us to go--to be indignant even at fancied wrongs--to rise in wrath against another, and then, before the hour has passed, to turn that wrath against one's self--that is not to be a coward. To know what duty requires, and then to be deterred by fear of results--that is to be a coward; but the man of many scruples may be the greatest hero of them all. Let the law of things be declared clearly so that the doubting mind shall no longer doubt, so that scruples may be laid at rest, so that the sense of justice may be satisfied--and he of whom I speak shall be ready to meet the world in arms against him. There are men, very useful in their way, who shall never doubt at all, but shall be ready, as the bull is ready, to encounter any obstacles that there may be before them. I will not say but that for the coarse purposes of the world they may not be the most efficacious, but I will not admit that they are therefore the bravest. The bull, who has no imagination to tell him what the obstacle may do to him, is not brave. He is brave who, fully understanding the potentiality of the obstacle, shall, for a sufficient purpose, move against it.

This Cicero always did. He braved the murderous anger of Sulla when, as a young man, he thought it well to stop the greed of Sulla's minions. He trusted himself amid the dangers prepared for him, when it was necessary that with extraordinary speed he should get together the evidence needed for the prosecution of Verres. He was firm against all that Catiline attempted for his destruction, and had courage enough for the responsibility when he thought it expedient to doom the friends of Catiline to death. In defending Milo, whether the cause were good or bad, he did not blench.[267] He joined the Republican army in Macedonia though he distrusted Pompey and his companions. When he thought that there was a hope for the Republic, he sprung at Antony with all the courage of a tigress protecting her young; and when all had failed and was rotten around him, when the Republic had so fallen that he knew it to be gone--then he was able to give his neck to the swordsman with all the apparent indifference of life which was displayed by those countrymen of our own whom I have named.

But why did he write so piteously when he was driven into exile? Why, at any rate, did he turn upon his chosen friend and scold him, as though that friend had not done enough for friendship? Why did he talk of suicide as though by that he might find the easiest way of escape?

I hold it to be natural that a man should wail to himself under a sense, not simply of misfortune, but of misfortune coming to him from the injustice of others, and specially from the ingratitude of friends. Afflictions which come to us from natural causes, such as sickness and physical pain, or from some chance such as the loss of our money by the breaking of a bank, an heroic man will bear without even inward complainings. But a sense of wrong done to him by friends will stir him, not by the misery inflicted, but because of the injustice; and that which he says to himself he will say to his wife, if his wife be to him a second self, or to his friend, if he have one so dear to him. The testimony by which the writers I have named have been led to treat Cicero so severely has been found in the letters which he wrote during his exile; and of these letters all but one were addressed either to Atticus or to his wife or to his brother.[268] Twenty-seven of them were to Atticus. Before he accepted a voluntary exile, as the best solution of the difficulty in which he was placed--for it was voluntary at first, as will be seen--he applied to the Consul Piso for aid, and for the same purpose visited Pompey. So far he was a suppliant, but this he did in conformity with Roman usage. In asking favor of a man in power there was held to be no disgrace, even though the favor asked were one improper to be granted, which was not the case with Cicero. And he went about the Forum in mourning--"sordidatus"--as was the custom with men on their trial. We cannot doubt that in each of these cases he acted with the advice of his friends. His conduct and his words after his return from exile betray exultation rather than despondency.

It is from the letters which he wrote to Atticus that he has been judged--from words boiling with indignation that such a one as he should have been surrendered by the Rome that he had saved, by those friends to whom he had been so true to be trampled on by such a one as Clodius! When a man has written words intended for the public ear, it is fair that he should bear the brunt of them, be it what it may. He has intended them for public effect, and if they are used against him he should not complain. But here the secret murmurings of the man's soul were sent forth to his choicest friend, with no idea that from them would he be judged by the "historians to come in 600 years,"[269] of whose good word he thought so much. "Quid vero historiæ de nobis ad annos DC. prædicarint!" he says, to Atticus. How is it that from them, after 2000 years, the Merivales, Mommsens, and Froudes condemn their great brother in letters whose lightest utterances have been found worthy of so long a life! Is there not an injustice in falling upon a man's private words, words when written intended only for privacy, and making them the basis of an accusation in which an illustrious man shall be arraigned forever as a coward? It is said that he was unjust even to Atticus, accusing even Atticus of lukewarmness. What if he did so--for an hour? Is that an affair of ours? Did Atticus quarrel with him? Let any reader of these words who has lived long enough to have an old friend, ask himself whether there has never been a moment of anger in his heart--of anger of which he has soon learned to recognize the injustice? He may not have written his anger, but then, perhaps, he has not had the pen of a Cicero. Let those who rebuke the unmanliness of Cicero's wailings remember what were his sufferings. The story has yet to be told, but I may in rough words describe their nature. Everything was to be taken from him: all that he had--his houses, his books, his pleasant gardens, his busts and pictures, his wide retinue of slaves, and possessions lordly as are those of our dukes and earls. He was driven out from Italy and so driven that no place of delight could be open to him. Sicily, where he had friends, Athens, where he might have lived, were closed against him. He had to look where to live, and did live for a while on money borrowed from his friends. All the cherished occupations of his life were over for him--the law courts, the Forum, the Senate, and the crowded meetings of Roman citizens hanging on his words. The circumstances of his exile separated him from his wife and children, so that he was alone. All this was assured to him for life, as far as Roman law could assure it. Let us think of the condition of some great and serviceable Englishman in similar circumstances. Let us suppose that Sir Robert Peel had been impeached, and forced by some iniquitous sentence to live beyond the pale of civilization: that the houses at Whitehall Gardens and at Drayton had been confiscated, dismantled, and levelled to the ground, and his rents and revenues made over to his enemies; that everything should have been done to destroy him by the country he had served, except the act of taking away that life which would thus have been made a burden to him. Would not his case have been more piteous, a source of more righteous indignation, than that even of the Mores or Raleighs? He suffered under invectives in the House of Commons, and we sympathized with him; but if some Clodius of the day could have done this to him, should we have thought the worse of him had he opened his wounds to his wife, or to his brother, or to his friend of friends?

Had Cicero put an end to his life in his exile, as he thought of doing, he would have been a second Cato to admiring posterity, and some Lucan with rolling verses would have told us narratives of his valor. The judges of to-day look back to his half-formed purposes in this direction as being an added evidence of the weakness of the man; but had he let himself blood and have perished in his bath, he would have been thought to have escaped from life as honorably as did Junius Brutus It is because he dared to live on that we are taught to think so little of him,--because he had antedated Christianity so far as to feel when the moment came that such an escape was, in truth, unmanly. He doubted, and when the deed had not been done he expressed regret that he had allowed himself to live. But he did not do it,--as Cato would have done, or Brutus.

It may be as well here to combat, in as few words as possible, the assertions which have been made that Cicero, having begun life as a democrat, discarded his colors as soon as he had received from the people those honors for which he had sought popularity. They who have said so have taken their idea from the fact that, in much of his early forensic work, he spoke against the aristocratic party. He attacked Sulla, through his favorite Chrysogonus, in his defence of Roscius Amerinus. He afterward defended a woman of Arretium in the spirit of antagonism to Sulla. His accusation of Verres was made on the same side in politics, and was carried on in opposition to Hortensius and the oligarchs. He defended the Tribune Caius Cornelius. Then, when he became Consul, he devoted himself to the destruction of Catiline, who was joined with many, perhaps with Cæsar's sympathy, in the conspiracy for the overthrow of the Republic. Cæsar soon became the leader of the democracy,--became rather what Mommsen describes as "Democracy" itself; and as Cicero had defended the Senate from Catiline, and had refused to attach himself to Cæsar, he is supposed to have turned from the political ideas of his youth, and to have become a Conservative when Conservative ideas suited his ambition.

I will not accept the excuse put forward on his behalf, that the early speeches were made on the side of democracy because the exigencies of the occasion required him to so devote his energies as an advocate. No doubt he was an advocate, as are our barristers of to-day, and, as an advocate, supported this side or that; but we shall be wrong if we suppose that the Roman "patronus" supplied his services under such inducements. With us a man goes into the profession of the law with the intention of making money, and takes the cases right and left, unless there be special circumstances which may debar him from doing so with honor. It is a point of etiquette with him to give his assistance, in turn, as he may be called on; so much so, that leading men are not unfrequently employed on one side simply that they may not be employed on the other side. It should not be urged on the part of Cicero that, so actuated, he defended Amerinus, a case in which he took part against the aristocrats, or defended Publius Sulla, in doing which he appeared on the side of the aristocracy. Such a defence of his conduct would be misleading, and might be confuted. It would be confuted by those who suppose him to have been "notoriously a political trimmer," as Mommsen has[270] called him; or a "deserter," as he was described by Dio Cassius and by the Pseudo-Sallust,[271] by showing that in fact he took up causes under the influence of strong personal motives such as rarely govern an English barrister. These motives were in many cases partly political; but they operated in such a manner as to give no guide to his political views. In defending Sulla's nephew he was moved, as far as we know, solely by private motives. In defending Amerinus he may be said to have attacked Sulla. His object was to stamp out the still burning embers of Sulla's cruelty; but not the less was he wedded to Sulla's general views as to the restoration of the authority of the Senate. In his early speeches, especially in that spoken against Verres, he denounces the corruption of the senatorial judges; but at that very period of his life he again and again expresses his own belief in the glory and majesty of the Senate. In accusing Verres he accused the general corruption of Rome's provincial governors; and as they were always past-Consuls or past-Prætors, and had been the elite of the aristocracy, he may be said so far to have taken the part of a democrat; but he had done so only so far as he had found himself bound by a sense of duty to put a stop to corruption. The venality of the judges and the rapacity of governors had been fit objects for his eloquence; but I deny that he can be fairly charged with having tampered with democracy because he had thus used his eloquence on behalf of the people.

He was no doubt stirred by other political motives less praiseworthy, though submitted to in accordance with the practice and the known usages of Rome. He had undertaken to speak for Catiline when Catiline was accused of corruption on his return from Africa, knowing that Catiline had been guilty. He did not do so; but the intention, for our present purpose, is the same as the doing. To have defended Catiline would have assisted him in his operations as a candidate for the Consulship. Catiline was a bad subject for a defence--as was Fonteius, whom he certainly did defend--and Catiline was a democrat. But Cicero, had he defended Catiline, would not have done so as holding out his hand to democracy. Cicero, when, in the Pro Lege Manilia, he for the first time addressed the people, certainly spoke in opposition to the wishes of the Senate in proposing that Pompey should have the command of the Mithridatic war; but his views were not democratic. It has been said that this was done because Pompey could help him to the Consulship. To me it seems that he had already declared to himself that among leading men in Rome Pompey was the one to whom the Republic would look with the most security as a bulwark, and that on that account he had resolved to bind himself to Pompey in some political marriage. Be that as it may, there was no tampering with democracy in the speech Pro Lege Manilia. Of all the extant orations made by him before his Consulship, the attentive reader will sympathize the least with that of Fonteius. After his scathing onslaught on Verres for provincial plunder, he defended the plunderer of the Gauls, and held up the suffering allies of Rome to ridicule as being hardly entitled to good government. This he did simply as an advocate, without political motive of any kind--in the days in which he was supposed to be currying favor with democracy--governed by private friendship, looking forward, probably, to some friendly office in return, as was customary. It was thus that afterward he defended Antony, his colleague in the Consulship, whom he knew to have been a corrupt governor. Autronius had been a party to Catiline's conspiracy, and Autronius had been Cicero's school-fellow; but Cicero, for some reserved reason with which we are not acquainted, refused to plead for Autronius. There is, I maintain, no ground for suggesting that Cicero had shown by his speeches before his Consulship any party adherence. The declaration which he made after his Consulship, in the speech for Sulla, that up to the time of Catiline's first conspiracy forensic duties had not allowed him to devote himself to party politics, is entitled to belief: we know, indeed, that it was so. As Quæstor, as Ædile, and as Prætor, he did not interfere in the political questions of Rome, except in demanding justice from judges and purity from governors. When he became Consul then he became a politician, and after that there was certainly no vacillation in his views. Critics say that he surrendered himself to Cæsar when Cæsar became master. We shall come to that hereafter; but the accusation with which I am dealing now is that which charges him with having abandoned the democratic memories of his youth as soon as he had enveloped himself with the consular purple. There had been no democratic promises, and there was no change when he became Consul.

In truth, Cicero's political convictions were the same from the beginning to the end of his career, with a consistency which is by no means usual in politicians; for though, before his Consulship, he had not taken up politics as a business he had entertained certain political views, as do all men who live in public. From the first to the last we may best describe him by the word we have now in use, as a conservative. The government of Rome had been an oligarchy for many years, though much had been done by the citizens to reduce the thraldom which an oligarchy is sure to exact. To that oligarchy Cicero was bound by all the convictions, by all the practices, and by all the prejudices of his life. When he speaks of a Republic he speaks of a people and of an Empire governed by an oligarchy; he speaks of a power to be kept in the hands of a few--for the benefit of the few, and of the many if it might be--but at any rate in the hands of a few. That those few should be so select as to admit of no new-comers among them, would probably have been a portion of his political creed, had he not been himself a "novus homo." As he was the first of his family to storm the barrier of the fortress, he had been forced to depend much on popular opinion; but not on that account had there been any dealings between him and democracy. That the Empire should be governed according to the old oligarchical forms which had been in use for more than four centuries, and had created the power of Rome--that was his political creed. That Consuls, Censors, and Senators might go on to the end of time with no diminution of their dignity, but with great increase of justice and honor and truth among them--that was his political aspiration. They had made Rome what it was, and he knew and could imagine nothing better; and, odious as an oligarchy is seen to be under the strong light of experience to which prolonged ages has subjected it, the aspiration on his part was noble. He has been wrongly accused of deserting "that democracy with which he had flirted in his youth." There had been no democracy in his youth, though there had existed such a condition in the time of the Gracchi. There was none in his youth and none in his age. That which has been wrongly called democracy was conspiracy--not a conspiracy of democrats such as led to our Commonwealth, or to the American Independence, or to the French Revolution; but conspiracy of a few nobles for the better assurance of the plunder, and the power, and the high places of the Empire. Of any tendency toward democracy no man has been less justly accused than Cicero, unless it might be Cæsar. To Cæsar we must accord the merit of having seen that a continuation of the old oligarchical forms was impracticable This Cicero did not see. He thought that the wounds inflicted by the degeneracy and profligacy of individuals were curable. It is attributed to Cæsar that he conceived the grand idea of establishing general liberty under the sole dominion of one great, and therefore beneficent, ruler. I think he saw no farther than that he, by strategy, management, and courage might become this ruler, whether beneficent or the reverse. But here I think that it becomes the writer, whether he be historian, biographer, or fill whatever meaner position he may in literature, to declare that no beneficence can accompany such a form of government. For all temporary sleekness, for metropolitan comfort and fatness, the bill has to be paid sooner or later in ignorance, poverty, and oppression. With an oligarchy there will be other, perhaps graver, faults; but with an oligarchy there will be salt, though it be among a few. There will be a Cicero now and again--or at least a Cato. From the dead, stagnant level of personal despotism there can be no rising to life till corruption paralyzes the hands of power, and the fabric falls by its own decay Of this no proof can be found in the world's history so manifest as that taught by the Roman Empire.

I think it is made clear by a study of Cicero's life and works, up to the period of his exile, that an adhesion to the old forms of the Roman Government was his guiding principle. I am sure that they who follow me to the close of his career will acknowledge that after his exile he lived for this principle, and that he died for it. "Respublica," the Republic, was the one word which to his ear contained a political charm. It was the shibboleth by which men were to be conjured into well-being. The word constitution is nearly as potent with us. But it is essential that the reader of Roman history and Roman biography should understand that the appellation had in it, for all Roman ears, a thoroughly conservative meaning. Among those who at Cicero's period dealt with politics in Rome--all of whom, no doubt, spoke of the Republic as the vessel of State which was to be defended by all persons--there were four classes. These were they who simply desired the plunder of the State--the Catilines, the Sullas of the day, and the Antonys; men such as Verres had been, and Fonteius, and Autronius. The other three can be best typified each by one man. There was Cæsar, who knew that the Republic was gone, past all hope. There was Cato--"the dogmatical fool Cato" as Mommsen calls him, perhaps with some lack of the historian's dignity--who was true to the Republic, who could not bend an inch, and was thus as detrimental to any hope of reconstruction as a Catiline or a Cæsar. Cicero was of the fourth class, believing in the Republic, intent on saving it, imbued amid all his doubts with a conviction that if the "optimates" or "boni"--the leading men of the party--would be true to themselves, Consuls, Censors, and Senate would still suffice to rule the world; but prepared to give and take with those who were opposed to him. It was his idea that political integrity should keep its own hands clean, but should wink at much dirt in the world at large. Nothing, he saw, could be done by Catonic rigor. We can see now that Ciceronic compromises were, and must have been, equally ineffective. The patient was past cure. But in seeking the truth as to Cicero, we have to perceive that amid all his doubts, frequently in despondency, sometimes overwhelmed by the misery and hopelessness of his condition, he did hold fast by this idea to the end. The frequent expressions made to Atticus in opposition to this belief are to be taken as the murmurs of his mind at the moment; as you shall hear a man swear that all is gone, and see him tear his hair, and shall yet know that there is a deep fund of hope within his bosom. It was the ingratitude of his political friends, his "boni" and his "optimates," of Pompey as their head, which tried him the sorest; but he was always forgiving them, forgiving Pompey as the head of them, because he knew that, were he to be severed from them, then the political world must be closed to him altogether.

Of Cicero's strength or Cicero's weakness Pompey seems to have known nothing. He was no judge of men. Cæsar measured him with a great approach to accuracy. Cæsar knew him to be the best Roman of his day; one who, if he could be brought over to serve in Cæsarean ranks, would be invaluable--because of his honesty, his eloquence, and his capability; but he knew him as one who must be silenced if he were not brought to serve on the Cæsarean side. Such a man, however, might be silenced for a while--taught to perceive that his efforts were vain--and then brought into favor by further overtures, and made of use. Personally he was pleasant to Cæsar, who had taste enough to know that he was a man worthy of all personal dignity. But Cæsar was not, I think, quite accurate in his estimation, having allowed himself to believe at the last that Cicero's energy on behalf of the Republic had been quelled.

[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ætat. 49.]

Now we will go back to the story of Cicero's exile. Gradually during the preceding year he had learned that Clodius was preparing to attack him, and to doubt whether he could expect protection from the Triumvirate. That he could be made safe by the justice either of the people or by that of any court before which he could be tried, seems never to have occurred to him. He knew the people and he knew the courts too well. Pompey no doubt might have warded off the coming evil; such at least was Cicero's idea. To him Pompey was the greatest political power as yet extant in Rome; but he was beginning to believe that Pompey would be untrue to him. When he had sent to Pompey a long account of the grand doings of his Consulship, Pompey had replied with faintest praises. He had rejected the overtures of the Triumvirate. In the last letter to Atticus in the year before, written in August,[272] he had declared that the Republic was ruined; that they who had brought things to this pass--meaning the Triumvirate--were hostile; but, for himself, he was confident in saying that he was quite safe in the good will of men around him. There is a letter to his brother written in November, the next letter in the collection, in which he says that Pompey and Cæsar promise him everything. With the exception of two letters of introduction, we have nothing from him till he writes to Atticus from the first scene of his exile.

When the new year commenced, Clodius was Tribune of the people, and immediately was active. Piso and Gabinius were Consuls. Piso was kinsman to Piso Frugi, who had married Cicero's daughter,[273]and was expected to befriend Cicero at this crisis. But Clodius procured the allotment of Syria and Macedonia to the two Consuls by the popular vote. They were provinces rich in plunder; and it was matter of importance for a Consul to know that the prey which should come to him as Proconsul should be worthy of his grasp. They were, therefore, ready to support the Tribune in what he proposed to do. It was necessary to Cicero's enemies that there should be some law by which Cicero might be condemned. It would not be within the power of Clodius, even with the Triumvirate at his back, to drive the man out of Rome and out of Italy, without an alleged cause. Though justice had been tabooed, law was still in vogue. Now there was a matter as to which Cicero was open to attack. As Consul he had caused certain Roman citizens to be executed as conspirators, in the teeth of a law which enacted that no Roman citizen should be condemned to die except by a direct vote of the people. It had certainly become a maxim of the constitution of the Republic that a citizen should not be made to suffer death except by the voice of the people. The Valerian, the Porcian, and the Sempronian laws had all been passed to that effect. Now there had been no popular vote as to the execution of Lentulus and the other conspirators, who had been taken red-handed in Rome in the affair of Catiline. Their death had been decreed by the Senate, and the decree of the Senate had been carried out by Cicero; but no decree of the Senate had the power of a law. In spite of that decree the old law was in force; and no appeal to the people had been allowed to Lentulus. But there had grown up in the constitution a practice which had been supposed to override the Valerian and Porcian laws. In certain emergencies the Senate would call upon the Consuls to see that the Republic should suffer no injury, and it had been held that at such moments the Consuls were invested with an authority above all law. Cicero had been thus strengthened when, as Consul, he had struggled with Catiline; but it was an open question, as Cicero himself very well knew. In the year of his Consulship--the very year in which Lentulus and the others had been strangled--he had defended Rabirius, who was then accused of having killed a citizen thirty years before. Rabirius was charged with having slaughtered the Tribune Saturninus by consular authority, the Consuls of the day having been ordered to defend the Republic, as Cicero had been ordered. Rabirius probably had not killed Saturninus, nor did any one now care whether he had done so or not. The trial had been brought about notoriously by the agency of Cæsar, who caused himself to be selected by the Prætor as one of the two judges for the occasion;[274] and Cæsar's object as notoriously was to lessen the authority of the Senate, and to support the democratic interest. Both Cicero and Hortensius defended Rabirius, but he was condemned by Cæsar, and, as we are told, himself only escaped by using that appeal to the people in support of which he had himself been brought to trial. In this, as in so many of the forensic actions of the day, there had been an admixture of violence and law. We must, I think, acknowledge that there was the same leaven of illegality in the proceedings against Lentulus. It had no doubt been the intention of the constitution that a Consul, in the heat of an emergency, should use his personal authority for the protection of the Commonwealth, but it cannot be alleged that there was such an emergency, when the full Senate had had time to debate on the fate of the Catiline criminals. Both from Cæsar's words as reported by Sallust, and from Cicero's as given to us by himself, we are aware that an idea of the illegality of the proceeding was present in the minds of Senators at the moment. But, though law was loved at Rome, all forensic and legislative proceedings were at this time carried on with monstrous illegality. Consuls consulted the heavens falsely; Tribunes used their veto violently; judges accepted bribes openly; the votes of the people were manipulated fraudulently. In the trial and escape of Rabirius, the laws were despised by those who pretended to vindicate them. Clodius had now become a Tribune by the means of certain legal provision, but yet in opposition to all law. In the conduct of the affair against Catiline Cicero seems to have been actuated by pure patriotism, and to have been supported by a fine courage; but he knew that in destroying Lentulus and Cethegus he subjected himself to certain dangers. He had willingly faced these dangers for the sake of the object in view. As long as he might remain the darling of the people, as he was at that moment, he would no doubt be safe; but it was not given to any one to be for long the darling of the Roman people. Cicero had become so by using an eloquence to which the Romans were peculiarly susceptible; but though they loved sweet tongues, long purses went farther with them. Since Cicero's Consulship he had done nothing to offend the people, except to remain occasionally out of their sight; but he had lost the brilliancy of his popularity, and he was aware that it was so.

In discussing popularity in Rome we have to remember of what elements it was formed. We hear that this or that man was potent at some special time by the assistance coming to him from the popular voice. There was in Rome a vast population of idle men, who had been trained by their city life to look to the fact of their citizenship for their support, and who did, in truth, live on their citizenship. Of "panem et circenses" we have all heard, and know that eleemosynary bread and the public amusements of the day supplied the material and æsthetic wants of many Romans. But men so fed and so amused were sure to need further occupations. They became attached to certain friends, to certain patrons, and to certain parties, and soon learned that a return was expected for the food and for the excitement supplied to them. This they gave by holding themselves in readiness for whatever violence was needed from them, till it became notorious in Rome that a great party man might best attain his political object by fighting for it in the streets. This was the meaning of that saying of Crassus, that a man could not be considered rich till he could keep an army in his own pay. A popular vote obtained and declared by a faction fight in the forum was still a popular vote, and if supported by sufficient violence would be valid. There had been street fighting of the kind when Cicero had defended Caius Cornelius, in the year after his Prætorship; there had been fighting of the kind when Rabirius had been condemned in his Consulship. We shall learn by-and-by to what extent such fighting prevailed when Clodius was killed by Milo's body-guard. At the period of which we are now writing, when Clodius was intent on pursuing Cicero to his ruin, it was a question with Cicero himself whether he would not trust to a certain faction in Rome to fight for him, and so to protect him. Though his popularity was on the wane--that general popularity which, we may presume, had been produced by the tone of his voice and the grace of his language--there still remained to him that other popularity which consisted, in truth, of the trained bands employed by the "boni" and the "optimates," and which might be used, if need were, in opposition to trained bands on the other side.

The bill first proposed by Clodius to the people with the object of destroying Cicero did not mention Cicero, nor, in truth, refer to him. It purported to enact that he who had caused to be executed any Roman citizen not duly condemned to death, should himself be deprived of the privilege of water or fire.[275] This condemned no suggested malefactor to death; but, in accordance with Roman law, made it impossible that any Roman so condemned should live within whatever bounds might be named for this withholding of fire and water. The penalty intended was banishment; but by this enactment no individual would be banished. Cicero, however, at once took the suggestion to himself, and put himself into mourning, as a man accused and about to be brought to his trial. He went about the streets accompanied by crowds armed for his protection; and Clodius also caused himself to be so accompanied. There came thus to be a question which might prevail should there be a general fight. The Senate was, as a body, on Cicero's side, but was quite unable to cope with the Triumvirate. Cæsar no doubt had resolved that Cicero should be made to go, and Cæsar was lord of the Triumvirate. On behalf of Cicero there was a large body of the conservative or oligarchical party who were still true to him; and they, too, all went into the usual public mourning, evincing their desire that the accused man should be rescued from his accusers.

The bitterness of Clodius would be surprising did we not know how bitter had been Cicero's tongue. When the affair of the Bona Dea had taken place there was no special enmity between this debauched young man and the great Consul. Cicero, though his own life had ever been clean and well ordered, rather affected the company of fast young men when he found them to be witty as well as clever. This very Clodius had been in his good books till the affair of the Bona Dea. But now the Tribune's hatred was internecine. I have hitherto said nothing, and need say but little, of a certain disreputable lady named Clodia. She was the sister of Clodius and the wife of Metellus Celer. She was accused by public voice in Rome of living in incest with her brother, and of poisoning her husband. Cicero calls her afterward, in his defence of Cælius, "amica omnium." She had the nickname of Quadrantaria[276] given to her, because she frequented the public baths, at which the charge was a farthing. It must be said also of her, either in praise or in dispraise, that she was the Lesbia who inspired the muse of Catullus. It was rumored in Rome that she had endeavored to set her cap at Cicero. Cicero in his raillery had not spared the lady. To speak publicly the grossest evil of women was not opposed to any idea of gallantry current among the Romans. Our sense of chivalry, as well as decency, is disgusted by the language used by Horace to women who once to him were young and pretty, but have become old and ugly. The venom of Cicero's abuse of Clodia annoys us, and we have to remember that the gentle ideas which we have taken in with our mother's milk had not grown into use with the Romans. It is necessary that this woman's name should be mentioned, and it may appear here as she was one of the causes of that hatred which burnt between Clodius and Cicero, till Clodius was killed in a street row.

It has been presumed that Cicero was badly advised in presuming publicly that the new law was intended against himself, and in taking upon himself the outward signs of a man under affliction. "The resolution," says Middleton, "of changing his gown was too hasty and inconsiderate, and helped to precipitate his ruin." He was sensible of his error when too late, and oft reproaches Atticus that, being a stander-by, and less heated with the game than himself, he would suffer him to make such blunders. And he quotes the words written to Atticus: "Here my judgment first failed me, or, indeed, brought me into trouble. We were blind, blind I say, in changing our raiment and in appealing to the populace. * * * I handed myself and all belonging to me over to my enemies, while you were looking on, while you were holding your peace; yes, you, who, if your wit in the matter was no better than mine, were impeded by no personal fears."[277] But the reader should study the entire letter, and study it in the original, for no translator can give its true purport. This the reader must do before he can understand Cicero's state of mind when writing it, or his relation to Atticus; or the thoughts which distracted him when, in accordance with the advice of Atticus, he resolved, while yet uncondemned, to retire into banishment. The censure to which Atticus is subjected throughout this letter is that which a thoughtful, hesitating, scrupulous man is so often disposed to address to himself. After reminding Atticus of the sort of advice which should have been given--the want of which in the first moment of his exile he regrets--and doing this in words of which it is very difficult now to catch the exact flavor, he begs to be pardoned for his reproaches. "You will forgive me this," he says. "I blame myself more than I do you; but I look to you as a second self, and I make you a sharer with me of my own folly." I take this letter out of its course, and speak of it as connected with that terrible period of doubt to which it refers, in which he had to decide whether he would remain in Rome and fight it out, or run before his enemies. But in writing the letter afterward his mind was as much disturbed as when he did fly. I am inclined, therefore, to think that Middleton and others may have been wrong in blaming his flight, which they have done, because in his subsequent vacillating moods he blamed himself. How the battle might have gone had he remained, we have no evidence to show; but we do know that though he fled, he returned soon with renewed glory, and altogether overcame the attempt which had been made to destroy him.

In this time of his distress a strong effort was made by the Senate to rescue him. It was proposed to them that they all as a body should go into mourning on his behalf; indeed, the Senate passed a vote to this effect, but were prevented by the two Consuls from carrying it out. As to what he had best do he and his friends were divided. Some recommended that he should remain where he was, and defend himself by street-fighting should it be necessary. In doing this he would acknowledge that law no longer prevailed in Rome--a condition of things to which many had given in their adherence, but with which Cicero would surely have been the last to comply. He himself, in his despair, thought for a time that the old Roman mode of escape would be preferable, and that he might with decorum end his life and his troubles by suicide. Atticus and others dissuaded him from this, and recommended him to fly. Among these Cato and Hortensius have both been named. To this advice he at last yielded, and it may be doubted whether any better could have been given. Lawlessness, which had been rampant in Rome before, had, under the Triumvirate, become almost lawful. It was Cæsar's intention to carry out his will with such compliance with the forms of the Republic as might suit him, but in utter disregard to all such forms when they did not suit him. The banishment of Cicero was one of the last steps taken by Cæsar before he left Rome for his campaigns in Gaul. He was already in command of the legions, and was just without the city. He had endeavored to buy Cicero, but had failed. Having failed, he had determined to be rid of him. Clodius was but his tool, as were Pompey and the two Consuls. Had Cicero endeavored to support himself by violence in Rome, his contest would, in fact have been with Cæsar.

Cicero, before he went, applied for protection personally to Piso the Consul, and to Pompey. Gabinius, the other Consul, had already declared his purpose to the Senate, but Piso was bound to him by family ties. He himself relates to us in his oration, spoken after his return, against this Piso, the manner of the meeting between him and Rome's chief officer. Piso told him--so at least Cicero declared in the Senate, and we have heard of no contradiction--that Gabinius was so driven by debts as to be unable to hold up his head without a rich province; that he himself, Piso, could only hope to get a province by taking part with Gabinius; that any application to the Consuls was useless, and that every one must look after himself.[278] Concerning his appeal to Pompey two stories have been given to us, neither of which appears to be true. Plutarch says that when Cicero had travelled out from Rome to Pompey's Alban villa, Pompey ran out of the back-door to avoid meeting him. Plutarch cared more for a good story than for accuracy, and is not worthy of much credit as to details unless when corroborated. The other account is based on Cicero's assertion that he did see Pompey on this occasion. Nine or ten years after the meeting he refers to it in a letter to Atticus, which leaves no doubt as to the fact. The story founded on that letter declares that Cicero threw himself bodily at his old friend's feet, and that Pompey did not lend a hand to raise him, but told him simply that everything was in Cæsar's hands. This narrative is, I think, due to a misinterpretation of Cicero's words, though it is given by a close translation of them. He is describing Pompey when Cæsar after his Gallic wars had crossed the Rubicon, and the two late Triumvirates--the third having perished miserably in the East--were in arms against each other. "Alter ardet furore et scelere" he says.[279] Cæsar is pressing on unscrupulous in his passion. "Alter is qui nos sibi quondam ad pedes stratos ne sublevabat quidem, qui se nihil contra hujus voluntatem aiebat facere posse." "That other one," he continues--meaning Pompey, and pursuing his picture of the present contrast--"who in days gone by would not even lift me when I lay at his feet, and told me that he could do nothing but as Cæsar wished it." This little supposed detail of biography has been given, no doubt, from an accurate reading of the words; but in it the spirit of the writer's mind as he wrote it has surely been missed. The prostration of which he spoke, from which Pompey would not raise him, the memory of which was still so bitter to him, was not a prostration of the body. I hold it to have been impossible that Cicero should have assumed such an attitude before Pompey, or that he would so have written to Atticus had he done so. It would have been neither Roman nor Ciceronian, as displayed by Cicero to Pompey. He had gone to his old ally and told him of his trouble, and had no doubt reminded him of those promises of assistance which Pompey had so often made. Then Pompey had refused to help him, and had assured him, with too much truth, that Cæsar's will was everything. Again, we have to remember that in judging of the meaning of words between two such correspondents as Cicero and Atticus, we must read between the lines, and interpret the words by creating for ourselves something of the spirit in which they were written and in which they were received. I cannot imagine that, in describing to Atticus what had occurred at that interview nine years after it had taken place, Cicero had intended it to be understood that he had really grovelled in the dust.

Toward the end of March he started from Rome, intending to take refuge among his friends in Sicily. On the same day Clodius brought in a bill directed against Cicero by name and caused it to be carried by the people, "Ut Marco Tullio aqua et igni interdictum sit"--that it should be illegal to supply Cicero with fire and water. The law when passed forbade any one to harbor the criminal within four hundred miles of Rome, and declared the doing so to be a capital offence. It is evident, from the action of those who obeyed the law, and of those who did not, that legal results were not feared so much as the ill-will of those who had driven Cicero to his exile. They who refused him succor did do so not because to give it him would be illegal, but lest Cæsar and Pompey would be offended. It did not last long, and during the short period of his exile he found perhaps more of friendship than of enmity; but he directed his steps in accordance with the bearing of party-spirit. We are told that he was afraid to go to Athens, because at Athens lived that Autronius whom he had refused to defend. Autronius had been convicted of conspiracy and banished, and, having been a Catilinarian conspirator, had been in truth on Cæsar's side. Nor were geographical facts sufficiently established to tell Cicero what places were and what were not without the forbidden circle. He sojourned first at Vibo, in the extreme south of Italy, intending to pass from thence into Sicily. It was there that he learned that a certain distance had been prescribed; but it seems that he had already heard that the Proconsular Governor of the island would not receive him, fearing Cæsar. Then he came north from Vibo to Brundisium, that being the port by which travellers generally went from Italy to the East. He had determined to leave his family in Rome, feeling, probably, that it would be easier for him to find a temporary home for himself than for him and them together. And there were money difficulties in which Atticus helped him.[280] Atticus, always wealthy, had now become a very rich man by the death of an uncle. We do not know of what nature were the money arrangements made by Cicero at the time, but there can be no doubt that the losses by his exile were very great. There was a thorough disruption of his property, for which the subsequent generosity of his country was unable altogether to atone. But this sat lightly on Cicero's heart. Pecuniary losses never weighed heavily with him.

As he journeyed back from Vibo to Brundisium friends were very kind to him, in spite of the law. Toward the end of the speech which he made five years afterward on behalf of his friend C. Plancius he explains the debt of gratitude which he owed to his client, whose kindness to him in his exile had been very great. He commences his story of the goodness of Plancius by describing the generosity of the towns on the road to Brundisium, and the hospitality of his friend Flavius, who had received him at his house in the neighborhood of that town, and had placed him safely on board a ship when at last he resolved to cross over to Dyrrachium. There were many schemes running in his head at this time. At one period he had resolved to pass through Macedonia into Asia, and to remain for a while at Cyzicum. This idea he expresses in a letter to his wife written from Brundisium. Then he goes, wailing no doubt, but in words which to me seem very natural as coming from a husband in such a condition: "O me perditum, O me afflictum;"[281] exclamations which it is impossible to translate, as they refer to his wife's separation from himself rather than to his own personal sufferings. "How am I to ask you to come to me?" he says; "you a woman, ill in health, worn out in body and in spirit. I cannot ask you! Must I then live without you? It must be so, I think. If there be any hope of my return, it is you must look to it, you that must strengthen it; but if, as I fear, the thing is done, then come to me. If I can have you I shall not be altogether destroyed." No doubt these are wailings; but is a man unmanly because he so wails to the wife of his bosom? Other humans have written prettily about women: it was common for Romans to do so. Catullus desires from Lesbia as many kisses as are the stars of night or the sands of Libya. Horace swears that he would perish for Chloe if Chloe might be left alive. "When I am dying," says Tibullus to Delia, "may I be gazing at you; may my last grasp hold your hand." Propertius tells Cynthia that she stands to him in lieu of home and parents, and all the joys of life. "Whether he be sad with his friends or happy, Cynthia does it all." The language in each case is perfect; but what other Roman was there of whom we have evidence that he spoke to his wife like this? Ovid in his letters from his banishment says much of his love for his wife; but there is no passion expressed in anything that Ovid wrote.

Clodius, as soon as the enactment against Cicero became law, caused it be carried into effect with all its possible cruelties. The criminal's property was confiscated. The house on the Palatine Hill was destroyed, and the goods were put up to auction, with, as we are told, a great lack of buyers. His choicest treasures were carried away by the Consuls themselves. Piso, who had lived near him in Rome, got for himself and for his father-in-law the rich booty from the town house. The country villas were also destroyed, and Gabinius, who had a country house close by Cicero's Tusculan retreat, took even the very shrubs out of the garden. He tells the story of the greed and enmity of the Consuls in the speech he made after his return, Pro Domo Sua,[282] pleading for the restitution of his household property. "My house on the Palatine was burnt," he says, "not by any accident, but by arson. In the mean time the Consuls were feasting, and were congratulating themselves among the conspirators, when one boasted that he had been Catiline's friend, the other that Cethegus had been his cousin." By this he implies that the conspiracy which during his Consulship had been so odious to Rome was now, in these days of the Triumvirate, again in favor among Roman aristocrats.

He went across from Brundisium to Dyrrachium, and from thence to Thessalonica, where he was treated with most loving-kindness by Plancius, who was Quæstor in these parts, and who came down to Dyrrachium to meet him, clad in mourning for the occasion. This was the Plancius whom he afterward defended, and indeed he was bound to do so. Plancius seems to have had but little dread of the law, though he was a Roman officer employed in the very province to the government of which the present Consul Piso had already been appointed. Thessalonica was within four hundred miles, and yet Cicero lived there with Plancius for some months.

The letters from Cicero during his exile are to me very touching, though I have been told so often that in having written them he lacked the fortitude of a Roman. Perhaps I am more capable of appreciating natural humanity than Roman fortitude. We remember the story of the Spartan boy who allowed the fox to bite him beneath his frock without crying. I think we may imagine that he refrained from tears in public, before some herd of school-fellows, or a bench of masters, or amid the sternness of parental authority; but that he told his sister afterward how he had been tortured, or his mother as he lay against her bosom, or perhaps his chosen chum. Such reticences are made dignified by the occasion, when something has to be won by controlling the expression to which nature uncontrolled would give utterance, but are not in themselves evidence either of sagacity or of courage. Roman fortitude was but a suit of armor to be worn on state occasions. If we come across a warrior with his crested helmet and his sword and his spear, we see, no doubt, an impressive object. If we could find him in his night-shirt, the same man would be there, but those who do not look deeply into things would be apt to despise him because his grand trappings were absent. Chance has given us Cicero in his night-shirt. The linen is of such fine texture that we are delighted with it, but we despise the man because he wore a garment--such as we wear ourselves indeed, though when we wear it nobody is then brought in to look at us.

There is one most touching letter written from Thessalonica to his brother, by whom, after thoughts vacillating this way and that, he was unwilling to be visited, thinking that a meeting would bring more of pain than of service. "Mi frater, mi frater, mi frater!" he begins. The words in English would hardly give all the pathos. "Did you think that I did not write because I am angry, or that I did not wish to see you? I angry with you! But I could not endure to be seen by you. You would not have seen your brother; not him whom you had left; not him whom you had known; not him whom, weeping as you went away, you had dismissed, weeping himself as he strove to follow you."[283] Then he heaps blame on his own head, bitterly accusing himself because he had brought his brother to such a pass of sorrow. In this letter he throws great blame upon Hortensius, whom together with Pompey he accuses of betraying him. What truth there may have been in this accusation as to Hortensius we have no means of saying. He couples Pompey in the same charge, and as to Pompey's treatment of him there can be no doubt. Pompey had been untrue to his promises because of his bond with Cæsar. It is probable that Hortensius had failed to put himself forward on Cicero's behalf with that alacrity which the one advocate had expected from the other. Cicero and Hortensius were friends afterward, but so were Cicero and Pompey. Cicero was forgiving by nature, and also by self-training. It did not suit his purposes to retain his enmities. Had there been a possibility of reconciling Antony to the cause of the "optimates" after the Philippics, he would have availed himself of it.

Cicero at one time intended to go to Buthrotum in Epirus, where Atticus possessed a house and property; but he changed his purpose. He remained at Thessalonica till November, and then returned to Dyrrachium, having all through his exile been kept alive by tidings of steps taken for his recall. There seems very soon to have grown up a feeling in Rome that the city had disgraced itself by banishing such a man; and Cæsar had gone to his provinces. We can well imagine that when he had once left Rome, with all his purposes achieved, having so far quieted the tongue of the strong speaker who might have disturbed them, he would take no further steps to perpetuate the orator's banishment. Then Pompey and Clodius soon quarrelled. Pompey, without Cæsar to direct him, found the arrogance of the Patrician Tribune insupportable. We hear of wheels within wheels, and stories within stories, in the drama of Roman history as it was played at this time. Together with Cicero, it had been necessary to Cæsar's projects that Cato also should be got out of Rome; and this had been managed by means of Clodius, who had a bill passed for the honorable employment of Cato on state purposes in Cyprus. Cato had found himself obliged to go. It was as though our Prime-minister had got parliamentary authority for sending a noisy member of the Opposition to Asiatic Turkey for six months There was an attempt, or an alleged attempt, of Clodius to have Pompey murdered; and there was street-fighting, so that Pompey was besieged, or pretended to be besieged, in his own house. "We might as well seek to set a charivari to music as to write the history of this political witches' revel," says Mommsen, speaking of the state of Rome when Cæsar was gone, Cicero banished, and Pompey supposed to be in the ascendant.[284] There was, at any rate, quarrelling between Clodius and Pompey, in the course of which Pompey was induced to consent to Cicero's return. Then Clodius took upon himself, in revenge, to turn against the Triumvirate altogether, and to repudiate even Cæsar himself. But it was all a vain hurly-burly, as to which Cæsar, when he heard the details in Gaul, could only have felt how little was to be gained by maintaining his alliance with Pompey. He had achieved his purpose, which he could not have done without the assistance of Crassus, whose wealth, and of Pompey, whose authority, stood highest in Rome; and now, having had his legions voted to him, and his provinces, and his prolonged term of years, he cared nothing for either of them.

There is a little story which must be repeated, as against Cicero, in reference to this period of his exile, because it has been told in all records of his life. Were I to omit the little story, it would seem as though I shunned the records which have been repeated as opposed to his credit. He had written, some time back, a squib in which he had been severe upon the elder Curio; so it is supposed; but it matters little who was the object or what the subject. This had got wind in Rome, as such matters do sometimes, and he now feared that it would do him a mischief with the Curios and the friends of the Curios. The authorship was only matter of gossip. Could it not be denied? "As it is written," says Cicero, "in a style inferior to that which is usual to me, can it not be shown not to have been mine?"[285] Had Cicero possessed all the Christian virtues, as we hope that prelates and pastors possess them in this happy land, he would not have been betrayed into, at any rate, the expression of such a wish. As it is, the enemies of Cicero must make the most of it. His friends, I think, will look upon it leniently.

Continued efforts were made among Cicero's friends at Rome to bring him back, with which he was not altogether contented. He argues the matter repeatedly with Atticus, not always in the best temper. His friends at Rome were, he thought, doing the matter amiss: they would fail, and he would still have to finish his days abroad. Atticus, in his way to Epirus, visits him at Dyrrachium, and he is sure that Atticus would not have left Rome but that the affair was hopeless. The reader of the correspondence is certainly led to the belief that Atticus must have been the most patient of friends; but he feels, at the same time, that Atticus would not have been patient had not Cicero been affectionate and true. The Consuls for the new year were Lentulus and Metellus Nepos. The former was Cicero's declared friend, and the other had already abandoned his enmity. Clodius was no longer Tribune, and Pompey had been brought to yield. The Senate were all but unanimous. But there was still life in Clodius and his party; and day dragged itself after day, and month after month, while Cicero still lingered at Dyrrachium, waiting till a bill should have been passed by the people. Pompey, who was never whole-hearted in anything, had declared that a bill voted by the people would be necessary. The bill at last was voted, on the 14th of August, and Cicero, who knew well what was being done at Rome, passed over from Dyrrachium to Brundisium on the same day, having been a year and four months absent from Rome. During the year B.C. 57, up to the time of his return, he wrote but three letters that have come to us--two very short notes to Atticus, in the first of which he declares that he will come over on the authority of a decree of the Senate, without waiting for a law. In the second he falls again into despair, declaring that everything is over. In the third he asks Metellus for his aid, telling the Consul that unless it be given soon the man for whom it is asked will no longer be living to receive it. Metellus did give the aid very cordially.

It has been remarked that Cicero did nothing for literature during his banishment, either by writing essays or preparing speeches; and it has been implied that the prostration of mind arising from his misfortunes must have been indeed complete, when a man whose general life was made marvellous by its fecundity had been repressed into silence. It should, however, be borne in mind that there could be no inducement for the writing of speeches when there was no opportunity of delivering them. As to his essays, including what we call his Philosophy and his Rhetoric, they who are familiar with his works will remember how apt he was, in all that he produced, to refer to the writings of others. He translates and he quotes, and he makes constant use of the arguments and illustrations of those who have gone before him. He was a man who rarely worked without the use of a library. When I think how impossible it would be for me to repeat this oft-told tale of Cicero's life without a crowd of books within reach of my hand, I can easily understand why Cicero was silent at Thessalonica and Dyrrachium. It has been remarked also by a modern critic that we find "in the letters from exile a carelessness and inaccuracy of expression which contrasts strongly with the style of his happier days." I will not for a moment put my judgment in such a matter in opposition to that of Mr. Tyrrell--but I should myself have been inclined rather to say that the style of Cicero's letters varies constantly, being very different when used to Atticus, or to his brother, or to lighter friends such as Poetus and Trebatius; and very different again when business of state was in hand, as are his letters to Decimus Brutus, Cassius Brutus, and Plancus. To be correct in familiar letters is not to charm. A studied negligence is needed to make such work live to posterity--a grace of loose expression which may indeed have been made easy by use, but which is far from easy to the idle and unpractised writer. His sorrow, perhaps, required a style of its own. I have not felt my own untutored perception of the language to be offended by unfitting slovenliness in the expression of his grief.

APPENDICES TO VOLUME I.

APPENDIX A.

(_See_ ch. II., note [39])

_THE BATTLE OF THE EAGLE AND THE SERPENT._

Homer, Iliad, lib. xii, 200:

[Greek: Hoi rh' eti mermêrizon ephestaotes para taphrôi. Ornis gar sphin epêlthe perêsemenai memaôsin, Aietos upsipetês ep' aristera laon eergôn, Phoinêenta drakonta pherôn onuchessi pelôron, Zôon et' aspaironta; kai oupô lêtheto charmês. Kopse gar auton echonta kata stêthos para deirên, Idnôtheis opisô; ho d' apo ethen êke chamaze, Algêsas odunêisi, mesoi d' eni kabbal' homilôi; Autos de klanxas peteto pnoêis anemoio.]

Pope's translation of the passage, book xii, 231:

"A signal omen stopp'd the passing host, The martial fury in their wonder lost. Jove's bird on sounding pinions beat the skies; A bleeding serpent, of enormous size, His talons trussed; alive, and curling round, He stung the bird, whose throat received the wound. Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey, In airy circles wings his painful way, Floats on the winds, and rends the heav'ns with cries. Amid the host the fallen serpent lies. They, pale with terror, mark its spires unroll'd, And Jove's portent with beating hearts behold."

Lord Derby's Iliad, book xii, 236:

"For this I read the future, if indeed To us, about to cross, this sign from Heaven Was sent, to leftward of the astonished crowd: A soaring eagle, bearing in his claws A dragon huge of size, of blood-red hue, Alive; yet dropped him ere he reached his home, Nor to his nestlings bore the intended prey."

Cicero's telling of the story:

"Hic Jovis altisoni subito pinnata satelles, Arboris e trunco serpentis saucia morsu, Ipsa feris subigit transfigens unguibus anguem Semianimum, et varia graviter cervice micantem. Quem se intorquentem lanians, rostroque cruentans, Jam satiata animum, jam duros ulta dolores, Abjicit efflantem, et laceratum affligit in unda; Seque obitu a solis nitidos convertit ad ortus."

Voltaire's translation:

"Tel on voit cet oiseau qui porte le tonnerre, Blessé par un serpent élancé de la terre; Il s'envole, il entraîne au séjour azuré L'ennemi tortueux dont il est entouré. Le sang tombe des airs. Il déchire, il dévore Le reptile acharné qui le combat encore; Il le perce, il le tient sous ses ongles vainqueurs; Par cent coups redoublés il venge ses douleurs. Le monstre, en expirant, se débat, se replie; Il exhale en poisons les restes de sa vie; Et l'aigle, tout sanglant, fier et victorieux, Le rejette en fureur, et plane au haut des cieux."

Virgil's version, Æneid, lib. xi., 751:

"Utque volans alte raptum quum fulva draconem Fert aquila, implicuitque pedes, atque unguibus hæsit Saucius at serpens sinuosa volumina versat, Arrectisque horret squamis, et sibilat ore, Arduus insurgens. Illa haud minus urget obunco Luctantem rostro; simul æthera verberat alis."

Dryden's translation from Virgil's Æneid, book xi.:

"So stoops the yellow eagle from on high, And bears a speckled serpent through the sky; Fastening his crooked talons on the prey, The prisoner hisses through the liquid way; Resists the royal hawk, and though opprest, She fights in volumes, and erects her crest. Turn'd to her foe, she stiffens every scale, And shoots her forky tongue, and whisks her threatening tail. Against the victor all defence is weak. Th' imperial bird still plies her with his beak: He tears her bowels, and her breast he gores, Then claps his pinions, and securely soars."

Pitt's translation, book xi.:

"As when th' imperial eagle soars on high, And bears some speckled serpent through the sky, While her sharp talons gripe the bleeding prey, In many a fold her curling volumes play, Her starting brazen scales with horror rise, The sanguine flames flash dreadful from her eyes She writhes, and hisses at her foe, in vain, Who wins at ease the wide ærial plain, With her strong hooky beak the captive plies, And bears the struggling prey triumphant through the skies."

Shelley's version of the battle, The Revolt of Islam, canto i.:

"For in the air do I behold indeed An eagle and a serpent wreathed in fight, And now relaxing its impetuous flight, Before the ærial rock on which I stood The eagle, hovering, wheeled to left and right, And hung with lingering wings over the flood, And startled with its yells the wide air's solitude

"A shaft of light upon its wings descended, And every golden feather gleamed therein-- Feather and scale inextricably blended The serpent's mailed and many-colored skin Shone through the plumes, its coils were twined within By many a swollen and knotted fold, and high And far, the neck receding lithe and thin, Sustained a crested head, which warily Shifted and glanced before the eagle's steadfast eye.

"Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling, With clang of wings and scream, the eagle sailed Incessantly--sometimes on high concealing Its lessening orbs, sometimes, as if it failed, Drooped through the air, and still it shrieked and wailed, And casting back its eager head, with beak And talon unremittingly assailed The wreathed serpent, who did ever seek Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak

"What life, what power was kindled, and arose Within the sphere of that appalling fray! For, from the encounter of those wond'rous foes, A vapor like the sea's suspended spray Hung gathered; in the void air, far away, Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap, Where'er the eagle's talons made their way, Like sparks into the darkness; as they sweep, Blood stains the snowy foam of the tumultuous deep.

"Swift chances in that combat--many a check, And many a change--a dark and wild turmoil; Sometimes the snake around his enemy's neck Locked in stiff rings his adamantine coil, Until the eagle, faint with pain and toil, Remitted his strong flight, and near the sea Languidly fluttered, hopeless so to foil His adversary, who then reared on high His red and burning crest, radiant with victory.

"Then on the white edge of the bursting surge, Where they had sunk together, would the snake Relax his suffocating grasp, and scourge The wind with his wild writhings; for, to break That chain of torment, the vast bird would shake The strength of his unconquerable wings As in despair, and with his sinewy neck Dissolve in sudden shock those linked rings, Then soar--as swift as smoke from a volcano springs.

"Wile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength, Thus long, but unprevailing--the event Of that portentous fight appeared at length. Until the lamp of day was almost spent It had endured, when lifeless, stark, and rent, Hung high that mighty serpent, and at last Fell to the sea, while o'er the continent, With clang of wings and scream, the eagle past, Heavily borne away on the exhausted blast."

I have repudiated the adverse criticism on Cicero's poetry which has been attributed to Juvenal; but, having done so, am bound in fairness to state that which is to be found elsewhere in any later author of renown as a classic. In the treatise De Oratoribus, attributed to Tacitus, and generally published with his works by him--a treatise commenced, probably, in the last year of Vespasian's reign, and completed only in that of Domitian--Cicero as a poet is spoken of with a severity of censure which the writer presumes to have been his recognized desert. "For Cæsar," he says, "and Brutus made verses, and sent them to the public libraries; not better, indeed, than Cicero, but with less of general misfortune, because only a few people knew that they had done so." This must be taken for what it is worth. The treatise, let it have been written by whom it might, is full of wit, and is charming in language and feeling. It is a dialogue after the manner of Cicero himself, and is the work of an author well conversant with the subjects in hand. But it is, no doubt, the case that those two unfortunate lines which have been quoted became notorious in Rome when there was a party anxious to put down Cicero.

APPENDIX B.

(_See_ ch. IV., note [84])

FROM THE BRUTUS--CA. XCII., XCIII.

"There were at that time two orators, Cotta and Hortensius, who towered above all others, and incited me to rival them. The first spoke with self-restraint and moderation, clearly and easily, expressing his ideas in appropriate language. The other was magnificent and fierce; not such as you remember him, Brutus, when he was already failing, but full of life both in his words and actions. I then resolved that Hortensius should, of the two, be my model, because I felt myself like to him in his energy, and nearer to him in his age. I observed that when they were in the same causes, those for Canuleius and for our consular Dolabella, though Cotta was the senior counsel, Hortensius took the lead. A large gathering of men and the noise of the Forum require that a speaker shall be quick, on fire, active, and loud. The year after my return from Asia I undertook the charge of causes that were honorable, and in that year I was seeking to be Quæstor, Cotta to be Consul, and Hortensius to be Prætor. Then for a year I served as Quæstor in Sicily. Cotta, after his Consulship, went as governor into Gaul, and then Hortensius was, and was considered to be, first at the bar. When I had been back from Sicily twelve months I began to find that whatever there was within me had come to such perfection as it might attain. I feel that I am speaking too much of myself, but it is done, not that you may be made to own my ability or my eloquence--which is far from my thoughts--but that you may see how great was my toil and my industry. Then, when I had been employed for nearly five years in many cases, and was accounted a leading advocate, I specially concerned myself in conducting the great cause on behalf of Sicily--the trial of Verres--when I and Hortensius were Ædile and Consul designate.

"But as this discussion of ours is intended to produce not a mere catalogue of orators, but some true lessons of oratory, let us see what there was in Hortensius that we must blame. When he was out of his Consulship, seeing that among past Consuls there was no one on a par with him, and thinking but little of those who were below consular rank, he became idle in his work to which from boyhood he had devoted himself, and chose to live in the midst of his wealth, as he thought a happier life--certainly an easier one. The first two or three years took off something from him. As the gradual decay of a picture will be observed by the true critic, though it be not seen by the world at large, so was it with his decay. From day to day he became more and more unlike his old self, failing in all branches of oratory, but specially in the rapidity and continuity of his words. But for myself I never rested, struggling always to increase whatever power there was in me by practice of every kind, especially in writing. Passing over many things in the year after I was Ædile, I will come to that in which I was elected first Prætor, to the great delight of the public generally; for I had gained the good-will of men, partly by my attention to the causes which I undertook, but specially by a certain new strain of eloquence, as excellent as it was uncommon, with which I spoke." Cicero, when he wrote this of himself, was an old man sixty-two years of age, broken hearted for the loss of his daughter, to whom it was no doubt allowed among his friends to praise himself with the garrulity of years, because it was understood that he had been unequalled in the matter of which he was speaking. It is easy for us to laugh at his boastings; but the account which he gives of his early life, and of the manner in which he attained the excellence for which he had been celebrated, is of value.

APPENDIX C.

(_See_ ch. VI., note [117])

There was still prevailing in Rome at this time a strong feeling that a growing taste for these ornamental luxuries was injurious to the Republic, undermining its simplicity and weakening its stability. We are well aware that its simplicity was a thing of the past, and its stability gone The existence of a Verres is proof that it was so; but still the feeling remained--and did remain long after the time of Cicero--that these beautiful things were a sign of decay. We know how conquering Rome caught the taste for them from conquered Greece. "Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes intulit agresti Latio." [286] Cicero submitted himself to this new captivity readily, but with apologies, as shown in his pretended abnegation of all knowledge of art. Two years afterward, in a letter to Atticus, giving him instructions as to the purchase of statues, he declares that he is altogether carried away by his longing for such things, but not without a feeling of shame. "Nam in eo genere sic studio efferimur ut abs te adjuvandi, ab aliis propre reprehendi simus"[287]--"Though you will help me, others I know will blame me." The same feeling is expressed beautifully, but no doubt falsely, by Horace when he declares, as Cicero had done, his own indifference to such delicacies:

"Gems, marbles, ivory, Tuscan statuettes, Pictures, gold plate, Gætulian coverlets, There are who have not. One there is, I trow, Who cares not greatly if he has or no."[288]

Many years afterward, in the time of Tiberius, Velleius Paterculus says the same when he is telling how ignorant Mummius was of sculpture, who, when he had taken Corinth, threatened those who had to carry away the statues from their places, that if they broke any they should be made to replace them. "You will not doubt, however," the historian says, "that it would have been better for the Republic to remain ignorant of these Corinthian gems than to understand them as well as it does now. That rudeness befitted the public honor better than our present taste."[289] Cicero understood well enough, with one side of his intelligence, that as the longing for these things grew in the minds of rich men, as the leading Romans of the day became devoted to luxury rather than to work, the ground on which the Republic stood must be sapped. A Marcellus or a Scipio had taken glory in ornamenting the city. A Verres or even an Hortensius--even a Cicero--was desirous of beautiful things for his own house. But still, with the other side of his intelligence, he saw that a perfect citizen might appreciate art, and yet do his duty, might appreciate art, and yet save his country. What he did not see was, that the temptations of luxury, though compatible with virtue, are antagonistic to it. The camel may be made to go through the eye of the needle--but it is difficult.

APPENDIX D.

(_See_ ch. VII., note [144])

PRO LEGE MANILIA--CA. X., XVI.

"Utinam, Quirites, virorum fortium, atque innocentium copiam tantam haberetis, ut hæc vobis deliberatio difficilis esset, quemnam potissimum tantis rebus ac tanto bello præficiendum putaretis! Nunc vero cum sit unus Cn. Pompeius, qui non modo eorum hominum, qui nunc sunt, gloriam, sed etiam antiquitatis memoriam virtute superarit; quæ res est, quæ cujusquam animum in hac causa dubium facere posset? Ego enim sic existimo, in summo imperatore quatuor has res inesse oportere, scientiam rei militaris, virtutem, auctoritatem, felicitatem. Quis igitur hoc homine scientior umquam aut fuit, aut esse debuit? qui e ludo, atque pueritiæ disciplina, bello maximo atque acerrimis hostibus, ad patris exercitum atque in militiæ disciplinam profectus est? qui extrema pueritia miles fuit summi imperatoris? ineunte adolescentia maximi ipse exercitus imperator? qui sæpius cum hoste conflixit, quam quisquam cum inimico concertavit? plura bella gessit, quam cæteri legerunt? plures provincias confecit, quam alii concupiverunt? cujus adolescentia ad scientiam rei militaris non alienis præceptis, sed suis imperiis; non offensionibus belli, sed victoriis; non stipendiis, sed triumphis est erudita? Quod denique genus belli esse potest, in quo illum non exercuerit fortuna reipublicæ? Civile; Africanum; Transalpinum; Hispaniense; mistum ex civitatibus atque ex bellicosissimis nationibus servile; navale bellum, varia et diversa genera, et bellorum et hostium, non solum gesta ab hoc uno, sed etiam confecta, nullam rem esse declarant, in usu militari positam, quæ hojus viri scientiam fugere posset.

* * * * *

"Quare cum et bellum ita necessarium sit, ut negligi non possit; ita magnum, ut accuratissime sit administrandum; et cum ei imperatorem præficere possitis, in quo sit eximia belli scientia, singularis virtus, clarissima auctoritas, egregia fortuna; dubitabitis, Quirites, quin hoc tantum boni, quod vobis a diis immortalibus oblatum et datum est, in rempublicam conservandam atque amplificandam conferatis?"

* * * * *

"I could wish, Quirites, that there was open to you so large a choice of men capable at the same time, and honest, that you might find a difficulty in deciding who might best be selected for command in a war so momentous as this. But now when Pompey alone has surpassed in achievements not only those who live, but all of whom we have read in history, what is there to make any one hesitate in the matter? In my opinion there are four qualities to be desired in a general--military knowledge, valor, authority, and fortune. But whoever was or was ever wanted to be more skilled than this man, who, taken fresh from school and from the lessons of his boyhood, was subjected to the discipline of his father's army during one of our severest wars, when our enemies were strong against us? In his earliest youth he served under our greatest general. As years went on he was himself in command over a large army. He has been more frequent in fighting than others in quarrelling. Few have read of so many battles as he has fought. He has conquered more provinces than others have desired to pillage. He learned the art of war not from written precepts, but by his own practice; not from reverses, but from victories. He does not count his campaigns, but the triumphs which he has won. What nature of warfare is there in which the Republic has not used his services? Think of our Civil war[290]--of our African war[291]--of our war on the other side of the Alps[292]--of our Spanish wars[293]--of our Servile war[294]--which was carried on by the energies of so many mighty people--and this Maritime war.[295] How many enemies had we, how various were our contests! They were all not only carried through by this one man, but brought to an end so gloriously as to show that there is nothing in the practice of warfare which has escaped his knowledge.

* * * * *

"Seeing, therefore, that this war cannot be neglected; that its importance demands the utmost care in its administration; that it requires a general in whom should be found sure military science, manifest valor, conspicuous authority, and pre-eminent good fortune--do you doubt, Quirites, but that you should use the great blessing which the gods have given you for the preservation and glory of the Republic?"

* * * * *

On reading, however, the piece over again, I almost doubt whether there be any passages in it which should be selected as superior to others.

APPENDIX E.

(_See_ ch. XI., note [235])

_LUCAN, LIBER I._

"O male concordes, nimiaque cupidine cæci, Quid miscere juvat vires orbemque tenere In medio."

"Temporis angusti mansit concordia discors, Paxque fuit non sponte ducum. Nam sola futuri Crassus erat belli medius mora. Qualiter undas Qui secat, et geminum gracilis mare separat isthmos, Nec patitur conferre fretum; si terra recedat, Ionium Ægæo frangat mare. Sic, ubi sæva Arma ducum dirimens, miserando funere Crassus Assyrias latio maculavit sanguine Carras."

"Dividitur ferro regnum; populique potentis, Quæ mare, quæ terras, quæ totum possidet orbem, Non cepit fortuna duos."

"Tu nova ne veteres obscurent acta triumphos, Et victis cedat piratica laurea Gallis, Magne, times; te jam series, ususque laborum Erigit, impatiensque loci fortuna secundi. Nec quemquam jam ferre potest Cæsarve priorem, Pompeiusve parem. Quis justius induit arma, Scire nefas; magno se judice quisque tuetur, Victrix causa deis placuit sed victa, Catoni.[296] Nec coiere pares; alter vergentibus annis In senium, longoque togæ tranquillior usu Dedidicit jam pace ducem; famæque petitor Multa dare in vulgas; totus popularibus auris Impelli, plausuque sui gaudere theatri; Nec reparare novas vires, multumque priori Credere fortunæ. Stat magni nominis umbra."

"Sed non in Cæsare tantum Nomen erat, nec fama ducis; sed nescia virtus Stare loco; solusque pudor non vincere bello. Acer et indomitus; quo spes, quoque ira vocasset, Ferre manum, et nunquam te merando parcere ferro; Successus urgere suos; instare favori Numinis."--Lucan, lib. i.

* * * * *

"O men so ill-fitted to agree, O men blind with greed, of what service can it be that you should join your powers, and possess the world between you?"

"For a short time the ill-sorted compact lasted, and there was a peace which each of them abhorred. Crassus alone stood between the others, hindering for a while the coming war--as an isthmus separates two waters and forbids sea to meet sea. If the morsel of land gives way, the Ionian waves and the Ægean dash themselves in foam against each other. So was it with the arms of the two chiefs when Crassus fell, and drenched the Assyrian Carræ with Roman blood."

"Then the possession of the Empire was put to the arbitration of the sword. The fortunes of a people which possessed sea and earth and the whole world, were not sufficient for two men."

"You, Magnus, you, Pompeius, fear lest newer deeds than yours should make dull your old triumphs, and the scattering of the pirates should be as nothing to the conquering of Gaul. The practice of many wars has so exalted you, O Cæsar, that you cannot put up with a second place. Cæsar will endure no superior; but Pompey will have no equal. Whose cause was the better the poet dares not inquire! Each will have his own advocate in history. On the side of the conqueror the gods ranged themselves. Cato has chosen to follow the conquered.

"But surely the men were not equal. The one in declining years, who had already changed his arms for the garb of peace, had unlearned the general in the statesman--had become wont to talk to the people, to devote himself to harangues, and to love the applause of his own theatre. He has not cared to renew his strength, trusting to his old fortune. There remains of him but the shadow of his great name."

"The name of Cæsar does not loom so large; nor is his character as a general so high. But there is a spirit which can content itself with no achievements; there is but one feeling of shame--that of not conquering; a man determined, not to be controlled, taking his arms wherever lust of conquest or anger may call him; a man never sparing the sword, creating all things from his own good-fortune trusting always the favors of the gods."

[1] Froude's Cæsar, p. 444.

[2] Ibid., p. 428.

[3] Ad Att., lib. xiii., 28.

[4] Ad Att., lib. ix., 10.

[5] Froude, p. 365.

[6] Ad Att., lib. ii., 5: "Quo quidem uno ego ab istis capi possum."

[7] The Cincian law, of which I shall have to speak again, forbade Roman advocates to take any payment for their services. Cicero expressly declares that he has always obeyed that law. He accused others of disobeying it, as, for instance, Hortensius. But no contemporary has accused him. Mr. Collins refers to some books which had been given to Cicero by his friend P[oe]tus. They are mentioned in a letter to Atticus, lib. i., 20; and Cicero, joking, says that he has consulted Cincius--perhaps some descendant of him who made the law 145 years before--as to the legality of accepting the present. But we have no reason for supposing that he had ever acted as an advocate for P[oe]tus.

[8] Virgil, Æneid, i., 150:

"Ac, veluti magno in populo quum sæpe coorta est Seditio, sævitque animis ignobile vulgus; Jamque faces, et saxa volant; furor arma ministrat: Tum, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant; Iste regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet."

[9] The author is saying that a history from Cicero would have been invaluable, and the words are "interitu ejus utrum respublica an historia magis doleat."

[10] Quintilian tells us this, lib. ii., c. 5. The passage of Livy is not extant. The commentators suppose it to have been taken from a letter to his son.

[11] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., c. 34.

[12] Valerius Maximus, lib. iv., c. 2; 4.

[13] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. vii., xxxi., 30.

[14] Martial, lib. xiv., 188.

[15] Lucan, lib. vii., 62:

"Cunctorum voces Romani maximus auctor Tullius eloquii, cujus sub jure togaque Pacificas sævus tremuit Catilina secures, Pertulit iratus bellis, cum rostra forumque Optaret passus tam longa silentia miles Addidit invalidæ robur facundia causæ."

[16] Tacitus, De Oratoribus, xxx.

[17] Juvenal, viii., 243.

[18] Demosthenes and Cicero compared.

[19] Quintilian, xii., 1.

[20] "Repudiatus vigintiviratus." He refused a position of official value rendered vacant by the death of one Cosconius. See Letters to Atticus, 2,19.

[21] Florus, lib. iv., 1. In a letter from Essex to Foulke Greville, the writing of which has been attributed to Bacon by Mr. Spedding, Florus is said simply to have epitomized Livy (Life, vol. ii., p. 23). In this I think that Bacon has shorn him of his honors.

[22] Florus, lib. iv., 1.

[23] Sallust, Catilinaria, xxiii.

[24] I will add the concluding passage from the pseudo declamation, in order that the reader may see the nature of the words which were put into Sallust's mouth: "Quos tyrannos appellabas, eorum nunc potentiæ faves; qui tibi ante optumates videbantur, eosdem nunc dementes ac furiosos vocas; Vatinii caussam agis, de Sextio male existumas; Bibulum petulantissumis verbis lædis, laudas Cæsarem; quem maxume odisti, ei maxume obsequeris. Aliud stans, aliud sedens, de republica sentis; his maledicis, illos odisti; levissume transfuga, neque in hac, neque illa parte fidem habes." Hence Dio Cassius declared that Cicero had been called a turncoat. [Greek: kai automalos ônomazeto.]

[25] Dio Cassius, lib. xlvi., 18: [Greek: pros hên kai autên toiautas epistolas grapheis hoias an grapseien anêr skôptolês athuroglôrros ... kai proseti kai to stoma autou diaballein epecheirêse tosautê aselgeia kai akatharsia para panta ton bion chrômenos hôste mêde tôn sungenestatôn apechesthai, alla tên te gunaika proagôgeuein kai tên thugatera moicheuein.]

[26] As it happens, De Quincey specially calls Cicero a man of conscience. "Cicero is one of the very few pagan statesmen who can be described as a thoroughly conscientious man," he says. The purport of his illogical essay on Cicero is no doubt thoroughly hostile to the man. It is chiefly worth reading on account of the amusing virulence with which Middleton, the biographer, is attacked.

[27] Quintilian, lib. ii., c. 5.

[28] De Finibus, lib. v., ca. xxii.: "Nemo est igitur, qui non hanc affectionem animi probet atque laudet."

[29] De Rep., lib. vi., ca. vii.: "Nihil est enim illi principi deo, qui omnem hunc mundum regit, quod quidem in terris fiat acceptius." Tusc. Quest., lib. i., ca. xxx.: "Vetat enim dominans ille in nobis deus."

[30] De Rep., lib. vi., ca. vii.: "Certum esse in c[oe]lo definitum locum, ubi beati ævo sempiterno fruantur."

[31] Hor., lib. i., Ode xxii.,

"Non rura quæ; Liris quieta Mordet aqua taciturnus amnis."

[32] Such was the presumed condition of things at Rome. By the passing of a special law a plebeian might, and occasionally did, become patrician. The patricians had so nearly died out in the time of Julius Cæsar that he introduced fifty new families by the Lex Cassia.

[33] De Orat., lib. ii., ca. 1.

[34] Brutus, ca. lxxxix.

[35] It should be remembered that in Latin literature it was the recognized practice of authors to borrow wholesale from the Greek, and that no charge of plagiarism attended such borrowing. Virgil, in taking thoughts and language from Homer, was simply supposed to have shown his judgment in accommodating Greek delights to Roman ears and Roman intellects.

The idea as to literary larceny is of later date, and has grown up with personal claims for originality and with copyright. Shakspeare did not acknowledge whence he took his plots, because it was unnecessary. Now, if a writer borrow a tale from the French, it is held that he ought at least to owe the obligation, or perhaps even pay for it.

[36] Juvenal, Sat. x., 122,

"O fortunatam natam me Consule Romam! Antoni gladios potuit contemnere, si sic Omnia dixisset."

[37] De Leg., lib. i., ca. 1.

[38] Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham, written by himself, vol. i., p. 58.

[39] I give the nine versions to which I allude in an Appendix A, at the end of this volume, so that those curious in such matters may compare the words in which the same picture has been drawn by various hands.

[40] Pro Archia, ca. vii.

[41] Brutus, ca. xc.

[42] Tacitus, De Oratoribus, xxx.

[43] Quintilian, lib. xii., c. vi., who wrote about the same time as this essayist, tells us of these three instances of early oratory, not, however, specifying the exact age in either case. He also reminds us that Demosthenes pleaded when he was a boy, and that Augustus at the age of twelve made a public harangue in honor of his grandmother.

[44] Brutus, ca. xc.

[45] Brutus, xci.

[46] Quintilian, lib. xii., vi.: "Quum jam clarum meruisset inter patronos, qui tum erant, nomen, in Asiam navigavit, seque et aliis sine dubio eloquentiæ ac sapientiæ magistris, sed præcipue tamen Apollonio Moloni, quem Romæ quoque audierat, Rhodi rursus formandum ac velut recognendum dedit."

[47] Brutus, xci.

[48] The total correspondence contains 817 letters, of which 52 were written to Cicero, 396 were written by Cicero to Atticus, and 369 by Cicero to his friends in general. We have no letters from Atticus to Cicero.

[49] Quintilian, lib. x., ca. 1.

[50] Clemens of Alexandria, in his exhortation to the Gentiles, is very severe upon the iniquities of these rites. "All evil be to him," he says, "who brought them into fashion, whether it was Dardanus, or Eetion the Thracian, or Midas the Phrygian." The old story which he repeats as to Ceres and Proserpine may have been true, but he was altogether ignorant of the changes which the common-sense of centuries had produced.

[51] De Legibus, lib. ii., c. xiv.

[52] It was then that the foreign empire commenced, in ruling which the simplicity and truth of purpose and patriotism of the Republic were lost.

[53] The reverses of fortune to which Marius was subjected, how he was buried up to his neck in the mud, hiding in the marshes of Minturnæ, how he would have been killed by the traitorous magistrates of that city but that he quelled the executioners by the fire of his eyes; how he sat and glowered, a houseless exile, among the ruins of Carthage--all which things happened to him while he was running from the partisans of Sulla--are among the picturesque episodes of history. There is a tragedy called the _Wounds of Civil War_, written by Lodge, who was born some eight years before Shakspeare, in which the story of Marius is told with some exquisite poetry, but also with some ludicrous additions. The Gaul who is hired to kill Marius, but is frightened by his eyes, talks bad French mingled with bad English, and calls on Jesus in his horror!

[54] Brutus, ca. xc.

[55] Florus tells us that there were 2000 Senators and Knights, but that any one was allowed to kill just whom he would. "Quis autem illos potest computare quos in urbe passim quisquis voluit occidit" (lib. iii., ca. 21).

[56] About £487 10_s._ In Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities the Attic talent is given as being worth £243 15_s._ Mommsen quotes the price as 12,000 denarii, which would amount to about the same sum.

[57] Suetonius speaks of his death. Florus mentions the proscriptions and abdication. Velleius Paterculus is eloquent in describing the horrors of the massacres and confiscation. Dio Cassius refers again and again to the Sullan cruelty. But none of them give a reason for the abdication of Sulla.

[58] Vol. iii., p. 386. I quote from Mr. Dickson's translation, as I do not read German.

[59] In defending Roscius Amerinus, while Sulla was still in power, he speaks of the Sullan massacres as "pugna Cannensis," a slaughter as foul, as disgraceful, as bloody as had been the defeat at Cannæ.

[60] Mommsen, vol. iii., p. 385.

[61] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. xxi.: "Quod antea causam publicam nullam dixerim." He says also in the Brutus, ca. xc., "Itaque prima causa publica, pro Sex. Roscio dicta." By "publica causa" he means a criminal accusation in distinction from a civil action.

[62] Pro Publio Quintio, ca. i.: "Quod mihi consuevit in ceteris causis esse adjumento, id quoque in hac causa deficit."

[63] Pro Publio Quintio, ca. xxi.: "Nolo eam rem commemorando renovare, cujus omnino rei memoriam omnem tolli funditus ac deleri arbitror oportere."

[64] Pro Roscio, ca. xlix. Cicero says of him that he would be sure to suppose that anything would have been done according to law of which he should be told that it was done by Sulla's order. "Putat homo imperitus morum, agricola et rusticus, ista omnia, quæ vos per Sullam gesta esse dicitis, more, lege, jure gentium facta."

[65] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. 1.

[66] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. xxix.: "Ejusmodi tempus erat, inquit, ut homines vulgo impune occiderentur."

[67] Pro T. A. Milone, ca. xxi.: "Cur igitur cos manumisit? Metuebat scilicit ne indicarent; ne dolorem perferre non possent."

[68] Pro T. A. Milone, ca. xxii.: "Heus tu, Ruscio, verbi gratia, cave sis mentiaris. Clodius insidias fecit Miloni? Fecit. Certa crux. Nullas fecit. Sperata libertas."

[69] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. xxviii.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Ibid., ca. xxxi.

[72] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. xlv.

[73] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. xlvi. The whole picture of Chrysogonus, of his house, of his luxuries, and his vanity, is too long for quotation, but is worth referring to by those who wish to see how bold and how brilliant Cicero could be.

[74] They put in tablets of wax, on which they recorded their judgment by inscribing letter, C, A, or NL--Condemno, Absolvo, or Non liquet--intending to show that the means of coming to a decision did not seem to be sufficient.

[75] Quintilian tells us, lib. x., ca. vii., that Cicero's speeches as they had come to his day had been abridged--by which he probably means only arranged--by Tiro, his slave and secretary and friend. "Nam Ciceronis ad præsens modo tempus aptatos libertus Tiro contraxit."

[76] Quintilian, lib. xi., ca. iii.: "Nam et toga, et calecus, et capillus, tam nimia cura, quam negligentia, sunt reprehendenda." * * * "Sinistrum brachium eo usque allevandum est, ut quasi normalem illum angulum faciat." Quint., lib. xii., ca. x., "ne hirta toga sit;" don't let the toga be rumpled; "non serica:" the silk here interdicted was the silk of effeminacy, not that silk of authority of which our barristers are proud. "Ne intonsum caput; non in gradus atque annulos comptum." It would take too much space were I to give here all the lessons taught by this professor of deportment as to the wearing of the toga.

[77] A doubt has been raised whether he was not married when he went to Greece, as otherwise his daughter would seem to have become a wife earlier than is probable. The date, however, has been generally given as it is stated here.

[78] Tacitus, Annal., xi., 5, says, "Qua cavetur antiquitus, ne quis, ob causam orandam, pecuniam donumve accipiat."

[79] De Off., lib. i., ca. xlii.: "Sordidi etiam putandi, qui mercantur a mercatoribus, quod statim vendant. Nihil enim proficiunt, nisi admodum mentiantur."

[80] De Off., lib. i., ca. xlii.: "Primum improbantur ii quæstus, qui in odia hominum incurrunt: ut portitorum ut f[oe]neratorum." The Portitores were inferior collectors of certain dues, stationed at seaports, who are supposed to have been extremely vexatious in their dealings with the public.

[81] Philipp., 11-16.

[82] Let any who doubt this statement refer to the fate of the inhabitants of Alesia and Uxellodunum. Cæsar did not slay or torture for the sake of cruelty, but was never deterred by humanity when expediency seemed to him to require victims. Men and women, old and young, many or few, they were sacrificed without remorse if his purpose required it.

[83] Pro Pub. Quintio, ca. xxv.

[84] See Appendix B, Brutus, ca. xcii., xciii.

[85] Brutus, ca. xciii.: "Animos hominum ad me dicendi novitate converteram."

[86] It must be remembered that this advice was actually given when Cicero subsequently became a candidate for the Consulship, but it is mentioned here as showing the manner in which were sought the great offices of State.

[87] Cicero speaks of Sicily as divided into two provinces, "Quæstores utriusque provinciæ." There was, however, but one Prætor or Proconsul. But the island had been taken by the Romans at two different times. Lilybæum and the west was obtained from the Carthaginians at the end of the first Punic war, whereas, Syracuse was conquered by Marcellus and occupied during the second Punic war.

[88] Tacitus, Ann., lib. xi., ca. xxii.: "Post, lege Sullæ, viginti creati supplendo senatui, cui judicia tradiderat."

[89] De Legibus, iii., xii.

[90] Pro P. Sexto, lxv.

[91] Pro Cluentio, lvi.

[92] Contra Verrem, Act. iv., ca. xi.: "Ecquæ civitas est, non modo in provinciis nostris, verum etiam in ultimis nationibus, aut tam potens, aut tam libera, aut etiam am immanis ac barbara; rex denique ecquis est, qui senatorem populi Romani tecto ac domo non invitet?"

[93] Contra Verrem, Act. i., ca. xiii.: "Omnia non modo commemorabuntur, sed etiam, expositis certis rebus, agentur, quæ inter decem annos, posteaquam judicia ad senatum translata sunt, in rebus judicandis nefarie flagitioseque facta sunt."

Pro Cluentio, lvi.: "Locus, auctoritas, domi splendor, apud exteras nationes nomen et gratia, toga prætexta, sella curulis, insignia, fasces, exercitus, imperia, provincia."

[94] Contra Verrem, Act. i., ca. xviii.: "Quadringenties sestertium ex Sicilia contra leges abstulisse." In Smith's Dictionary of Grecian and Roman Antiquities we are told that a thousand sesterces is equal in our money to £8 17_s._ 1_d._ Of the estimated amount of this plunder we shall have to speak again.

[95] Pro Plancio, xxvi.

[96] Pro Plancio, xxvi.

[97] M. du Rozoir was a French critic, and was joined with M. Guéroult and M. de Guerle in translating and annotating the Orations of Cicero for M. Panckoucke's edition of the Latin classics.

[98] In Verrem Actio Secunda, lib. i., vii.

[99] Plutarch says that Cæcilius was an emancipated slave, and a Jew, which could not have been true, as he was a Roman Senator.

[100] De Oratore, lib. ii., c. xlix. The feeling is beautifully expressed in the words put into the mouth of Antony in the discussion on the charms and attributes of eloquence: "Qui mihi in liberum loco more majorum esse deberet."

[101] In Q. Cæc. Divinatio, ca. ii.

[102] Divinatio, ca. iii.

[103] Ibid., ca. vi.

[104] Ibid., ca. viii.

[105] Divinatio, ca. ix.

[106] Ibid., ca. xi.

[107] Ibid.

[108] Ibid., ca. xii.

[109] Actio Secunda, lib. ii., xl. He is speaking of Sthenius, and the illegality of certain proceedings on the part of Verres against him. "If an accused man could be condemned in the absence of the accuser, do you think that I would have gone in a little boat from Vibo to Velia, among all the dangers prepared for me by your fugitive slaves and pirates, when I had to hurry at the peril of my life, knowing that you would escape if I were not present to the day?"

[110] Actio Secunda, l. xxi.

[111] In Verrem, Actio Prima, xvi.

[112] In Verrem, Actio Prima, xvi.

[113] We are to understand that the purchaser at the auction having named the sum for which he would do the work, the estate of the minor, who was responsible for the condition of the temple, was saddled with that amount.

[114] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. ii., vii.

[115] Ibid., ix.

[116] Ibid., lib. ii., xiv.

[117] See Appendix C.

[118] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. ii., ca. xxxvi.

[119] Ibid. "Una nox intercesserat, quam iste Dorotheum sic diligebat, ut diceres, omnia inter eos esse communia."--wife and all. "Iste" always means Verres in these narratives.

[120] These were burning political questions of the moment. It was as though an advocate of our days should desire some disgraced member of Parliament to go down to the House and assist the Government in protecting Turkey in Asia and invading Zululand.

[121] "Sit in ejus exercitu signifer." The "ejus" was Hortensius, the coming Consul, too whom Cicero intended to be considered as pointing. For the passage, see In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. ii., xxxi.

[122] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. iii., 11.

[123] "Exegi monumentum ære perennius," said Horace, gloriously. "Sum pius Æneas" is Virgil's expression, put into the mouth of his hero. "Ipse Menaleas," said Virgil himself. Homer and Sophocles introduce their heroes with self-sounded trumpetings:

[Greek: Eim' Odysseus Daertiadês hos pasi doloisi Anthrôpoisi melô, kai meu kleos ouranon ikei.] Odyssey, book ix., 19 and 20.

[Greek: Ho pasi kleinos Oidipous kaloumenos.] [OE]dipus Tyrannus, 8.

[124] Pro Plancio, xxvi.: "Frumenti in summa caritate maximum numerum miseram; negotiatoribus comis, mercatoribus justus, municipibus liberalis, sociis abstinens, omnibus eram visus in omni officio diligentissimus."

[125] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. iii., ix.: "Is erit Apronius ille; qui, ut ipse non solum vita, sed etiam corpore atque ore significat, immensa aliqua vorago est ac gurges vitiorum turpitudinumque omnium. Hunc in omnibus stupris, hunc in fanorum expilationibus, hunc in impuris conviviis principem adhibebat; tantamque habebat morum similitudo conjunctionem atque concordiam, ut Apronius, qui aliis inhumanus ac barbarus, isti uni commodus ac disertus videretur; ut quem omnes odissent neque videre vellent sine eo iste esse non posset; ut quum alii ne conviviis quidem iisdem quibus Apronius, hic iisdem etiam poculis uteretur, postremo, ut, odor Apronii teterrimus oris et corporis, quem, ut aiunt, ne bestiæ quidem ferre possent, uni isti suavis et jucundus videretur. Ille erat in tribunali proximus; in cubiculo socius; in convivio dominus, ac tum maxime, quum, accubante prætextato prætoris filio, in convivio saltare nudus c[oe]perat."

[126] A great deal is said of the _Cybea_ in this and the last speech. The money expended on it was passed through the accounts as though the ship had been built for the defence of the island from pirates, but it was intended solely for the depository of the governor's plunder.

[127] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. iv., vii.

[128] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. iv., lvii.

[129] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. v., lxvi.: "Facinus est vinciri civem Romanum; scelus verberari; prope parricidium necari; quid dicam in crucem tollere!"

[130] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. v., lxv.

[131] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. v., xx.: "Onere suo plane captam atque depressam."

[132] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. v., xxvi.

[133] Ibid., xxviii.

[134] Pro Fonteio, xiii.

[135] De Oratore, lib. ii., lix.: "Perspicitis, hoc genus quam sit facetum, quam elegans, quam oratorium, sive habeas vere, quod narrare possis, quod tamen, est mendaciunculis aspergendum, sive fingas." Either invent a story, or if you have an old one, add on something so as to make it really funny. Is there a parson, a bishop, an archbishop, who, if he have any sense of humor about him, does not do the same?

[136] Cicero, Pro Cluentio, l., explains very clearly his own idea as to his own speeches as an advocate, and may be accepted, perhaps, as explaining the ideas of barristers of to-day. "He errs," he says, "who thinks that he gets my own opinions in speeches made in law courts; such speeches are what the special cases require, and are not to be taken as coming from the advocate as his own."

[137] When the question is discussed, we are forced rather to wonder how many of the great historical doings of the time are not mentioned, or are mentioned very slightly, in Cicero's letters. Of Pompey's treatment of the pirates, and of his battling in the East, little or nothing is said, nothing of Cæsar's doings in Spain. Mention is made of Cæsar's great operations in Gaul only in reference to the lieutenancy of Cicero's brother Quintus, and to the employment of his young friend Trebatius. Nothing is said of the manner of Cæsar's coming into Rome after passing the Rubicon; nothing of the manner of fighting at Dyrrachium and Pharsalia; very little of the death of Pompey; nothing of Cæsar's delay in Egypt. The letters deal with Cicero's personal doings and thoughts, and with the politics of Rome as a city. The passage to which allusion is made occurs in the life of Atticus, ca. xvi: "Quæ qui legat non multum desideret historiam contextam illorum temporum."

[138] Jean George Greefe was a German, who spent his life as a professor at Leyden, and, among other classical labors, arranged and edited the letters of Cicero. He died in 1703.

[139] It must be explained, however, that continued research and increased knowledge have caused the order of the letters, and the dates assigned to them, to be altered from time to time; and, though much has been done to achieve accuracy, more remains to be done. In my references to the letters I at first gave them, both to the arrangement made by Grævius and to the numbers assigned in the edition I am using; but I have found that the numbers would only mislead, as no numbering has been yet adopted as fixed. Arbitrary and even fantastic as is the arrangement of Grævius, it is better to confine myself to that because it has been acknowledged, and will enable my readers to find the letters if they wish to do so. Should Mr. Tyrrell continue and complete his edition of the correspondence, he will go far to achieve the desired accuracy. A second volume has appeared since this work of mine has been in the press.

[140] The peculiarities of Cicero's character are nowhere so clearly legible as in his dealings with and words about his daughter. There is an effusion of love, and then of sorrow when she dies, which is un-Roman, almost feminine, but very touching.

[141] I annex a passage from our well known English translation: "The power of the pirates had its foundation in Cilicia. Their progress was the more dangerous, because at first it had been but little noticed. In the Mithridatic war they assumed new confidence and courage, on account of some services which they had rendered the king. After this, the Romans being engaged in civil war at the very gates of their capital, the sea was left unguarded, and the pirates by degrees attempted higher things--not only attacking ships, but islands and maritime towns. Many persons distinguished for their wealth, birth and capacity embarked with them, and assisted in their depredations, as if their employment had been worthy the ambition of men of honor. They had in various places arsenals, ports, and watch-towers, all strongly fortified. Their fleets were not only extremely well manned, supplied with skilful pilots, and fitted for their business by their lightness and celerity, but there was a parade of vanity about them, more mortifying than their strength, in gilded sterns, purple canopies, and plated oars, as if they took a pride and triumphed in their villany. Music resounded, and drunken revels were exhibited on every coast. Here generals were made prisoners; and there the cities which the pirates had seized upon were paying their ransom, to the great disgrace of the Roman power. The number of their galleys amounted to a thousand, and the cities taken to four hundred." The passage is taken from the life of Pompey.

[142] Florus, lib. iii., 6: "An felicitatem, quod ne una cuidam navis amissa est; an vero perpetuitatem, quod amplius piratæ non fuerunt."

[143] Of the singular trust placed in Pompey there are very many proofs in the history of Rome at this period, but none, perhaps, clearer than the exception made in this favor in the wording of laws. In the agrarian law proposed by the Tribune Rullus, and opposed by Cicero when he was Consul, there is a clause commanding all Generals under the Republic to account for the spoils taken by them in war. But there is a special exemption in favor of Pompey. "Pompeius exceptus esto." It is as though no Tribune dared to propose a law affecting Pompey.

[144] See Appendix D.

[145] Asconius Pedianus was a grammarian who lived in the reign of Tiberius, and whose commentaries on Cicero's speeches, as far as they go, are very useful in explaining to us the meaning of the orator. We have his notes on these two Cornelian orations and some others, especially on that of Pro Milone. There are also commentaries on some of the Verrine orations--not by Asconius, but from the pen of some writer now called Pseudo-Asconius, having been long supposed to have come from Asconius. They, too, go far to elucidate much which would otherwise be dark to us.

[146] Quint., lib. viii., 3. The critic is explaining the effect of ornament in oratory--of that beauty of language which with the people has more effect than argument--and he breaks forth himself into perhaps the most eloquent passage in the whole Institute: "Cicero, in pleading for Cornelius, fought with arms which were as splendid as they were strong. It was not simply by putting the facts before the judges, by talking usefully, in good language and clearly, that he succeeded in forcing the Roman people to acknowledge by their voices and by their hands their admiration; it was the grandeur of his words, their magnificence, their beauty, their dignity, which produced that outburst."

[147] Orator., lxvii. and lxx.

[148] De Lege Agraria, ii., 2: "Meis comitiis non tabellam, vindicem tacitæ libertatis, sed vocem vivam præ vobis, indicem vestrarum erga me voluntatum ac studiorum tulistis. Itaque me * * * una voce universus populus Romanus consulem declaravit."

[149] Sall., Conj. Catilinaria, xxi.: "Petere consulatum C. Antonium, quem sibi collegam fore speraret, hominem et familiarem, et omnibus necessitudinibus circumventum." Sallust would no doubt have put anything into Catiline's mouth which would suit his own purpose; but it was necessary for his purpose that he should confine himself to credibilities.

[150] Cicero himself tells us that many short-hand writers were sent by him--"Plures librarii," as he calls them--to take down the words of the Agrarian law which Rullus proposed. De Lege Agra., ii., 5. Pliny, Quintilian, and Martial speak of these men as Notarii. Martial explains the nature of their business:

"Currant verba licet, manus est velocior illis; Nondum lingua suum, dextra peregit opus."--xiv., 208.

[151]Ad Att., ii., 1. "Oratiunculas," he calls them. It would seem here that he pretends to have preserved these speeches only at the request of some admiring young friends. Demosthenes, of course, was the "fellow-citizen," so called in badinage, because Atticus, deserting Rome, lived much at Athens.

[152] This speech, which has been lost, was addressed to the people with the view of reconciling them to a law in accordance with which the Equites were entitled to special seats in the theatre. It was altogether successful.

[153] This, which is extant, was spoken in defence of an old man who was accused of a political homicide thirty-seven years before--of having killed, that is, Saturninus the Tribune. Cicero was unsuccessful, but Rabirius was saved by the common subterfuge of an interposition of omens. There are some very fine passages in this oration.

[154] This has been lost. Cicero, though he acknowledged the iniquity of Sulla's proscriptions, showed that their effects could not now be reversed without further revolutions. He gained his point on this occasion.

[155] This has been lost. Cicero, in accordance with the practice of the time, was entitled to the government of a province when ceasing to be Consul. The rich province of Macedonia fell to him by lot, but he made it over to his colleague Antony, thus purchasing, if not Antony's co-operation, at any rate his quiescence, in regard to Catiline. He also made over the province of Gaul, which then fell to his lot, to Metellus, not wishing to leave the city. All this had to be explained to the people.

[156] It will be seen that he also defended Rabirius in his consular year, but had thought fit to include that among his consular speeches. Some doubt has been thrown, especially by Mr. Tyrrell, on the genuineness of Cicero's letter giving the list of his "oratiunculas consulares," because the speeches Pro Murena and Pro Pisone are omitted, and as containing some "rather un-Ciceronian expressions." My respect for Mr. Tyrrell's scholarship and judgment is so great that I hardly dare to express an opinion contrary to his; but I should be sorry to exclude a letter so Ciceronian in its feeling. And if we are to have liberty to exclude without evidence, where are we to stop?

[157] Corn. Nepo., Epaminondas, I.: "We know that with us" (Romans) "music is foreign to the employments of a great man. To dance would amount to a vice. But these things among the Greeks are not only pleasant but praiseworthy."

[158] Conj. Catilinaria, xxv.

[159] Horace, Epis. i., xvii.:

"Si sciret regibus uti Fastidiret olus qui me notat."

[160] Pro Murena, xxix.

[161] Pro Murena, x. This Sulpicius was afterward Consul with M. Marcellus, and in the days of the Philippics was sent as one of a deputation to Antony. He died while on the journey. He is said to have been a man of excellent character, and a thorough-going conservative.

[162] Pro Murena, xi.

[163] Ibid., xi.

[164] Ibid., xii.

[165] Ibid., xiii.

[166] Ibid., xi.

[167] Pro Cluentio, 1.

[168] De Lege Agraria, ii., 5.

[169] He alludes here to his own colleague Antony, whom through his whole year of office he had to watch lest the second Consul should join the enemies whom he fears--should support Rullus or go over to Catiline. With this view, choosing the lesser of the two evils, he bribes Antony with the government of Macedonia.

[170] De Lege Agraria, i., 7 and 8.

[171] The "jus imaginis" belonged to those whose ancestors was counted an Ædile, a Prætor, or a Consul. The descendants of such officers were entitled to have these images, whether in bronze, or marble, or wax, carried at the funerals of their friends.

[172] Forty years since, Marius who was also "novus homo," and also, singularly enough, from Arpinum, had been made Consul, but not with the glorious circumstances as now detailed by Cicero.

[173] De Lege Agraria, ii., 1, 2, and 3.

[174] See Introduction.

[175] Pliny the elder, Hist. Nat., lib. vii., ca. xxxi.

[176] The word is "proscripsisti," "you proscribed him." For the proper understanding of this, the bearing of Cicero toward Antony during the whole period of the Philippics must be considered.

[177] Catiline, by Mr. Beesly. Fortnightly Review, 1865.

[178] Pro Murena, xxv.: "Quem omnino vivum illinc exire non oportuerat." I think we must conclude from this that Cicero had almost expected that his attack upon the conspirators, in his first Catiline oration, would have the effect of causing him to be killed.

[179] Æneid, viii., 668:

"Te, Catilina, minaci Pendentem scopulo."

[180] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., xxxiv.

[181] Juvenal, Sat. ii., 27: "Catilina Cethegum!" Could such a one as Catiline answer such a one as Cethegus? Sat. viii., 232: "Arma tamen vos Nocturna et flammas domibus templisque parastis." Catiline, in spite of his noble blood, had endeavored to burn the city. Sat. xiv., 41: "Catilinam quocunque in populo videas." It is hard to find a good man, but it is easy enough to put your hand anywhere on a Catiline.

[182] Val Maximus, lib. v., viii., 5; lib. ix., 1, 9; lib. ix., xi., 3.

[183] Florus, lib. iv.

[184] Mommsen's History of Rome, book v., chap v.

[185] I feel myself constrained here to allude to the treatment given to Catiline by Dean Merivale in his little work on the two Roman Triumvirates. The Dean's sympathies are very near akin to those of Mr. Beesly, but he values too highly his own historical judgment to allow it to run on all fours with Mr. Beesly's sympathies. "The real designs," he says, "of the infamous Catiline and his associates must indeed always remain shrouded in mystery. * * * Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny, and on the whole it would be unreasonable to doubt, that such a conspiracy there really was, and that the very existence of the commonwealth was for a moment seriously imperilled." It would certainly be unreasonable to doubt it. But the Dean, though he calls Catiline infamous, and acknowledges the conspiracy, nevertheless give us ample proof of his sympathy with the conspirators, or rather of his strong feeling against Cicero. Speaking of Catiline at a certain moment, he says that he "was not yet hunted down." He speaks of the "upstart Cicero," and plainly shows us that his heart is with the side which had been Cæsar's. Whether conspiracy or no conspiracy, whether with or without wholesale murder and rapine, a single master with a strong hand was the one remedy needed for Rome! The reader must understand that Cicero's one object in public life was to resist that lesson.

[186] Asconius, "In toga candida," reports that Fenestella, a writer of the time of Augustus, had declared that Cicero had defended Catiline; but Asconius gives his reasons for disbelieving the story.

[187] Cicero, however, declares that he has made a difference between traitors to their country and other criminals. Pro P. Sulla, ca. iii.: "Verum etiam quædam contagio sceleris, si defendas eum, quem obstrictum esse patriæ parricidio suspicere." Further on in the same oration, ca. vi., he explains that he had refused to defend Autronius because he had known Autronius to be a conspirator against his country. I cannot admit the truth of the argument in which Mr. Forsyth defends the practice of the English bar in this respect, and in doing so presses hard upon Cicero. "At Rome," he says, "it was different. The advocate there was conceived to have a much wider discretion than we allow." Neither in Rome nor in England has the advocate been held to be disgraced by undertaking the defence of bad men who have been notoriously guilty. What an English barrister may do, there was no reason that a Roman advocate should not do, in regard to simple criminality. Cicero himself has explained in the passage I have quoted how the Roman practice did differ from ours in regard to treason. He has stated also that he knew nothing of the first conspiracy when he offered to defend Catiline on the score of provincial peculations. No writer has been heavy on Hortensius for defending Verres, but only because he took bribes from Verres.

[188] Publius Cornelius Sulla, and Publius Autronius P[oe]tus.

[189] Pro P. Sulla, iv. He declares that he had known nothing of the first conspiracy and gives the reason: "Quod nondum penitus in republica versabar, quod nondum ad propositum mihi finem honoris perveneram, quod mea me ambitio et forensis labor ab omni illa cogitatione abstrahebat."

[190] Sallust, Catilinaria, xviii.

[191] Livy, Epitome, lib. ci.

[192] Suetonius, J. Cæsar, ix.

[193] Mommsen, book v., ca. v., says of Cæsar and Crassus as to this period, "that this notorious action corresponds with striking exactness to the secret action which this report ascribes to them." By which he means to imply that they probably were concerned in the plot.

[194] Sallust tells us, Catilinaria, xlix., that Cicero was instigated by special enemies of Cæsar to include Cæsar in the accusation, but refused to mix himself up in so great a crime. Crassus also was accused, but probably wrongfully. Sallust declares that an attempt was made to murder Cæsar as he left the Senate. There was probably some quarrel and hustling, but no more.

[195] Sallust, Catilinaria, xxxvii.: "Omnino cuncta plebes, novarum rerum studio, Catilinæ incepta probabat." By the words "novarum rerum studio"--by a love of revolution--we can understand the kind of popularity which Sallust intended to express.

[196] Pro Murena, xxv.

[197] "Darent operam consules ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat."

[198] Catilinaria, xxxi.

[199] Quintilian, lib. xii., 10: "Quem tamen et suorum homines temporum incessere audebant, ut tumidiorem, et asianum, et redundantem."

[200] Orator., xxxvii.: "A nobis homo audacissimus Catilina in senatu accusatus obmutuit."

[201] 2 Catilinaria, xxxi.

[202] In the first of them to the Senate, chap. ix., he declares this to Catiline himself: "Si mea voce perterritus ire in exsilium animum induxeris, quanta tempestas invidiæ nobis, si minus in præsens tempus, recenti memoria scelerum tuorum, at in posteritatem impendeat." He goes on to declare that he will endure all that, if by so doing he can save the Republic. "Sed est mihi tanti; dummodo ista privata sit calamitas, et a reipublicæ periculis sejungatur."

[203] Sallust, Catilinaria, xli.: "Itaque Q. Fabio Sangæ cujus patrocinio civitas plurimum utebatur rem omnem uti cognoverant aperiunt."

[204] Horace, Epo. xvi., 6: "Novisque rebus infidelis Allobrox." The unhappy Savoyard has from this line been known through ages as a conspirator, false even to his fellow-conspirators.

Juvenal, vii., 214: "Rufum qui toties Ciceronem Allobroga dixit." Some Rufus, acting as advocate, had thought to put down Cicero by calling him an Allobrogian.

[205] The words in which this honor was conferred he himself repeats: "Quod urbem incendiis, cæde cives, Italiam bello liberassem"--"because I had rescued the city from fire, the citizens from slaughter, and Italy from war."

[206] It is necessary in all oratory to read something between the lines. It is allowed to the speaker to produce effect by diminishing and exaggerating. I think we should detract something from the praises bestowed on Catiline's military virtues. The bigger Catiline could be made to appear, the greater would be the honor of having driven him out of the city.

[207] In Catilinam, iii., xi.

[208] In Catilinam, ibid., xii.: "Ne mihi noceant vestrum est providere."

[209] "Prince of the Senate" was an honorary title, conferred on some man of mark as a dignity--at this period on some ex-Consul; it conferred no power. Cicero, the Consul who had convened the Senate, called on the speakers as he thought fit.

[210] Cæsar, according to Sallust, had referred to the Lex Porcia. Cicero alludes, and makes Cæsar allude, to the Lex Sempronia. The Porcian law, as we are told by Livy, was passed B.C. 299, and forbade that a Roman should be scourged or put to death. The Lex Sempronia was introduced by C. Gracchus, and enacted that the life of a citizen should not be taken without the voice of the citizens.

[211] Velleius Paterculus, xxxvi.: "Consulatui Ciceronis non mediocre adjecit decus natus eo anno Divus Augustus."

[212] In Pisonem, iii.: "Sine ulla dubitatione juravi rempublicam atque hanc urbem mea unius opera esse salvam."

[213] Dio Cassius tells the same story, lib. xxxvii., ca. 38, but he adds that Cicero was more hated than ever because of the oath he took: [Greek: kai ho men kai ek toutou poly mallon emisêthê.]

[214] It is the only letter given in the collection as having been addressed direct to Pompey. In two letters written some years later to Atticus, B.C. 49, lib. viii., 11, and lib. viii., 12, he sends copies of a correspondence between himself and Pompey and two of the Pompeian generals.

[215] Lib. v., 7. It is hardly necessary to explain that the younger Scipio and Lælius were as famous for their friendship as Pylades and Orestes. The "Virtus Scipiadæ et mitis sapientia Læli" have been made famous to us all by Horace.

[216] These two brothers, neither of whom was remarkable for great qualities, though they were both to be Consuls, were the last known of the great family of the Metelli, a branch of the "Gens Cæcilia." Among them had been many who had achieved great names for themselves in Roman history, on account of the territories added to the springing Roman Empire by their victories. There had been a Macedonicus, a Numidicus, a Balearicus, and a Creticus. It is of the first that Velleius Paterculus sings the glory--lib. i., ca. xi., and the elder Pliny repeats the story, Hist. Nat., vii., 44--that of his having been carried to the grave by four sons, of whom at the time of his death three had been Consuls, one had been a Prætor, two had enjoyed triumphal honors, and one had been Censor. In looking through the consular list of Cicero's lifetime, I find that there were no less than seven taken from the family of the Metelli. These two brothers, Metellus Nepos and Celer, again became friends to Cicero; Nepos, who had stopped his speech and assisted in forcing him into exile, having assisted as Consul in obtaining his recall from exile. It is very difficult to follow the twistings and turnings of Roman friendships at this period.

[217] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., ca. xiv. Paterculus tells us how, when the architect offered to build the house so as to hide its interior from the gaze of the world, Drusus desired the man so to construct it that all the world might see what he was doing.

[218] It may be worth while to give a translation of the anecdote as told by Aulus Gellius, and to point out that the authors intention was to show what a clever fellow Cicero was. Cicero did defend P. Sulla this year; but whence came the story of the money borrowed from Sulla we do not know. "It is a trick of rhetoric craftily to confess charges made, so as not to come within the reach of the law. So that, if anything base be alleged which cannot be denied, you may turn it aside with a joke, and make it a matter of laughter rather than of disgrace, as it is written that Cicero did when, with a drolling word, he made little of a charge which he could not deny. For when he was anxious to buy a house on the Palatine Hill, and had not the ready money, he quietly borrowed from P. Sulla--who was then about to stand his trial, 'sestertium viciens'--twenty million sesterces. When that became known, before the purchase was made, and it was objected to him that he had borrowed the money from a client, then Cicero, instigated by the unexpected charge, denied the loan, and denied also that he was going to buy the house. But when he had bought it and the fib was thrown in his teeth, he laughed heartily, and asked whether men had so lost their senses as not to be aware that a prudent father of a family would deny an intended purchase rather than raise the price of the article against himself."--Noctes Atticæ, xii., 12. Aulus Gellius though he tells us that the story was written, does not tell us where he read it.

[219] I must say this, "pace" Mr. Tyrrell, who, in his note on the letter to Atticus, lib. i., 12, attempts to show that some bargain for such professional fee had been made. Regarding Mr. Tyrrell as a critic always fair, and almost always satisfactory, I am sorry to have to differ from him; but it seems to me that he, too, has been carried away by the feeling that in defending a man's character it is best to give up some point.

[220] I have been amused at finding a discourse, eloquent and most enthusiastic, in praise of Cicero and especially of this oration, spoken by M. Guéroult at the College of France in June, 1815. The worst literary faults laid to the charge of Cicero, if committed by him--which M. Guéroult thinks to be doubtful--had been committed even by Voltaire and Racine! The learned Frenchman, with whom I altogether sympathize, rises to an ecstasy of violent admiration, and this at the very moment in which Waterloo was being fought. But in truth the great doings of the world do not much affect individual life. We should play our whist at the clubs though the battle of Dorking were being fought.

[221] Pro P. Sulla, iv.: "Scis me * * * illorum expertem temporum et sermonum fuisse; credo, quod nondum penitus in republica versabar, quod nondum ad propositum mihi finem honoris perveneram. * * * Quis ergo intererat vestris consiliis? Omnes hi, quos vides huic adesse et in primis Q. Hortensius."

[222] Ad Att., lib. i., 12.

[223] Ad Att., lib. i., 13.

[224] Ibid., i., 14.

[225]Ibid., i., 16: "Vis scire quomodo minus quam soleam præliatus sum."

[226] "You have bought a fine house," said Clodius. "There would be more in what you say if you could accuse me of buying judges," replied Cicero. "The judges would not trust you on your oath," said Clodius, referring to the alibi by which he had escaped in opposition to Cicero's oath. "Yes," replied Cicero, "twenty-five trusted me; but not one of the thirty-one would trust you without having his bribe paid beforehand."

[227] Ad Att., i., 14: "Proxime Pompeium sedebam. Intellexi hominem moveri."

[228] Ibid.: "Quo modo [Greek: eneperpereusamên], novo auditori Pompeio."

[229] Mommsen, book v., chap. vi. This probably has been taken from the statement of Paterculus, lib. ii., 40: "Quippe plerique non sine exercitu venturum in urbem adfirmabant, et libertati publicæ statuturum arbitrio suo modum. Quo magis hoc homines timuerant, eo gratior civilis tanti imperatoris reditus fuit." No doubt there was a dread among many of Pompey coming back as Sulla had come: not from indications to be found in the character of Pompey, but because Sulla had done so.

[230] Florus, lib. ii., xix. Having described to us the siege of Numantia, he goes on "Hactenus populus Romanus pulcher, egregius, pius, sanctus atque magnificus. Reliqua seculi, ut grandia æque, ita vel magis turbida et f[oe]da."

[231] We have not Pollio's poem on the conspiracy, but we have Horace's record of Pollio's poem:

Motum ex Metello consule civicum, Bellique causas et vitia, et modos, Ludumque Fortunæ, gravesque Principum amicitias, et arma Nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus, Periculosæ plenum opus aleæ, Tractas, et incedis per ignes Suppositos cineri doloso.--Odes, lib. ii., 1.

[232] The German index appeared--very much after the original work--as late as 1875.

[233] Mommsen, lib. v., chap. vi. I cannot admit that Mommsen is strictly accurate, as Cæsar had no real idea of democracy. He desired to be the Head of the Oligarchs, and, as such, to ingratiate himself with the people.

[234] For the character of Cæsar generally I would refer readers to Suetonius, whose life of the great man is, to my thinking, more graphic than any that has been written since. For his anecdotes there is little or no evidence. His facts are not all historical. His knowledge was very much less accurate than that of modern writers who have had the benefit of research and comparison. But there was enough of history, of biography, and of tradition to enable him to form a true idea of the man. He himself as a narrator was neither specially friendly nor specially hostile. He has told what was believed at the time, and he has drawn a character that agrees perfectly with all that we have learned since.

[235] By no one has the character and object of the Triumvirate been so well described as by Lucan, who, bombastic as he is, still manages to bring home to the reader the ideas as to persons and events which he wishes to convey. I have ventured to give in an Appendix, E, the passages referred to, with such a translation in prose as I have been able to produce. It will be found at the end of this volume.

[236] Plutarch--Crassus: [Greek: kai synestêsen ek tôn triôn ischyn amachon.]

[237] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., 44: "Hoc igitur consule, inter eum et Cn. Pompeium et M. Crassum inita potentiæ societas, quæ urbi orbique terrarum, nec minus diverso quoque tempore ipsis exitiabilis fuit." Suetonius, Julius Cæsar, xix., "Societatem cum utroque iniit." Officers called Triumviri were quite common, as were Quinqueviri and Decemviri. Livy speaks of a "Triumviratus"--or rather two such offices exercised by one man--ix., 46. We remember, too, that wretch whom Horace gibbeted, Epod. iv.: "Sectus flagellis hic triumviralibus." But the word, though in common use, was not applied to this conspiracy.

[238] Ad Att., lib. ii., 3: "Is affirmabat, illum omnibus in rebus meo et Pompeii consilio usurum, daturumque operam, ut cum Pompeio Crassum conjungeret. Hic sunt hæc. Conjunctio mihi summa cum Pompeio; si placet etiam cum Cæsare; reditus in gratiam cum inimicis, pax cum multitudine; senectulis otium. Sed me [Greek: katakleis] mea illa commovet, quæ est in libro iii.

"Interea cursus, quos prima a parte juventæ Quosque adeo consul virtute, animoque petisti, Hos retine, atque, auge famam laudesque bonorum."

[239] Homer, Iliad, lib. xii., 243: [Greek: Eis oiônos aristos amynesthai peri patrês.]

[240] Middleton's Life of Cicero, vol. i., p. 291.

[241] Pro Domo Sua, xvi. This was an oration, as the reader will soon learn more at length, in which the orator pleaded for the restoration of his town mansion after his return from exile. It has, however, been doubted whether the speech as we have it was ever made by Cicero.

[242] Suetonius, Julius Cæsar, xx.

[243] Ad Att., lib. ii., 1: "Quid quæris?" says Cicero. "Conturbavi Græcam nationem"--"I have put all Greece into a flutter."

[244] De Divinatione, lib. i.

[245] Ad Quin. Fratrem, lib. i., 1: "Non itineribus tuis perterreri homines? non sumptu exhauriri? non adventu commoveri? Esse, quocumque veneris, et publice et privatim maximam lætitiam; quum urbs custodem non tyrannum; domus hospitem non expilatorem, recipisse videatur? His autem in rebus jam te usus ipse profecto erudivit nequaquam satis esse, ipsum hasce habere virtutis, sed esse circumspiciendum diligentur, ut in hac custodia provinciæ non te unum, sed omnes ministros imperii tui, sociis, et civibus, et reipublicæ præstare videare."

[246] Ad Quin. Fratrem, lib. i., 1: "Ac mihi quidem videntur huc omnia esse referenda iis qui præsunt aliis; ut ii, qui erunt eorum in imperio sint quam beatissimi, quod tibi et esse antiquissimum et ab initio fuisse, ut primum Asiam attigisti, constante fama atque omnium sermone celebratum est. Est autem non modo ejus, qui sociis et civibus, sed etiam ejus qui servis, qui mutis pecudibus præsit, eorum quibus præsit commodis utilitatique servire."

[247] "Hæc est una in toto imperio tuo difficultas."

[248] Mommsen, book v., ca. 6.

[249] Mommsen, vol. v., ca. vi.

[250] Ad Att., lib. ii., 7: "Atque hæc, sin velim existimes, non me abs te [Greek: kata to praktikon] quærere, quod gestiat animus aliquid agere in republica. Jam pridem gubernare me tædebat, etiam quum licebat."

[251] Ad Att., lib. ii., 8: "Scito Curionem adolescentem venisse ad me salutatum. Valde ejus sermo de Publio cum tuis litteris congruebat, ipse vero mirandum in modum Reges odisse superbos. Peræque narrabat incensam esse juventutem, neque ferre hæc posse." The "reges superbos" were Cæsar and Pompey.

[252] Ad Att., lib. ii., 5: [Greek: Aideomai Trôas kai Trôadas helkesipeplous].--Il., vi., 442. "I fear what Mrs. Grundy would say of me," is Mr. Tyrrell's homely version. Cicero's mind soared, I think, higher when he brought the words of Hector to his service than does the ordinary reference to our old familiar critic.

[253] Quint., xii., 1.

[254] Enc. Britannica on Cicero.

[255] Ad Att., lib. ii., 9.

[256] Ibid.: "Festive, mihi crede, et minore sonitu, quam putaram, orbis hic in republica est conversus." "Orbis hic," this round body of three is the Triumvirate.

[257] We cannot but think of the threat Horace made, Sat., lib. ii., 1:

"At ille Qui me commorit, melius non tangere! clamo, Flebit, et insignis tota cantabitur urbe."

[258] Ad Att., lib. ii., 11: "Da ponderosam aliquam epistolam."

[259] Josephus, lib. xviii., ca. 5.

[260] Ad Att., lib. ii., 16.

[261] Ad Att., lib. ii., 18: "A Cæsare valde liberaliter invitor in legationem illam, sibi ut sim legatus; atque etiam libera legatio voti causa datur."

[262] De Legibus, lib. iii., ca. viii.: "Jam illud apertum prefecto est nihil esse turpius, quam quenquam legari nisi republica causa."

[263] It may be seen from this how anxious Cæsar was to secure his silence, and yet how determined not to screen him unless he could secure his silence.

[264] Ad Quintum, lib. i., 2.

[265] Of this last sentence I have taken a translation given by Mr. Tyrrell, who has introduced a special reading of the original which the sense seems to justify.

[266] Macrobius, Saturnalia, lib. ii., ca. i.: We are told that Cicero had been called the consular buffoon. "And I," says Macrobius, "if it would not be too long, could relate how by his jokes he has brought off the most guilty criminals." Then he tells the story of Lucius Flaccus.

[267] See the evidence of Asconius on this point, as to which Cicero's conduct has been much mistaken. We shall come to Milo's trial before long.

[268] The statement is made by Mr. Tyrrell in his biographical introduction to the Epistles.

[269] The 600 years, or anni DC., is used to signify unlimited futurity.

[270] Mommsen's History, book v., ca. v.

[271] [Greek: Automalos ônomazeto] is the phrase of Dio Cassius. "Levissume transfuga" is the translation made by the author of the "Declamatio in Ciceronem." If I might venture on a slang phrase, I should say that [Greek: automalos] was a man who "went off on his own hook." But no man was ever more loyal as a political adherent than Cicero.

[272] Ad Att., ii., 25.

[273] We do not know when the marriage took place, or any of the circumstances; but we are aware that when Tullia came, in the following year, B.C. 57, to meet her father at Brundisium, she was a widow.

[274] Suetonius, Julius Cæsar, xii.: "Subornavit etiam qui C. Rabirio perduellionis diem diceret."

[275] "Qui civem Romanum indemnatum perimisset, ei aqua at igni interdiceretur."

[276] Plutarch tells us of this sobriquet, but gives another reason for it, equally injurious to the lady's reputation.

[277] Ad Att., lib. iii., 15.

[278] In Pisonem, vi.

[279] Ad Att., lib. x., 4.

[280] We are told by Cornelius Nepos, in his life of Atticus, that when Cicero fled from his country Atticus advanced to him two hundred and fifty sesterces, or about £2000. I doubt, however, whether the flight here referred to was not that early visit to Athens which Cicero was supposed to have made in his fear of Sulla.

[281] Ad Fam., lib. xiv., iv.: "Tullius to his Terentia, and to his young Tullia, and to his Cicero," meaning his boy.

[282] Pro Domo Sua, xxiv.

[283] Ad Quin. Fra., 1, 3.

[284] The reader who wishes to understand with what anarchy the largest city in the world might still exist, should turn to chapter viii. of book v. of Mommsen's History.

[285] Ad Att., lib. iii., 12.

[286] Horace, Epis., lib. ii., 1.

[287] Ad Att., lib. i., 8.

[288] Horace, Epis., lib. ii., 11. The translation is Conington's.

[289] Vell. Pat., lib. i., xiii.

[290] "Civile;" when Sulla, with Pompey under him, was fighting with young Marius and Cinna.

[291] "Africanum;" when he had fought with Domitius, the son-in-law of Cinna, and with Hiarbas.

[292] "Transalpinum;" during his march through Gaul into Spain.

[293] "Hispaniense;" in which he conquered Sertorius.

[294] "Servile;" the war with Spartacus, with the slaves and gladiators.

[295] "Navale Bellum;" the war with the pirates.

[296] For the full understanding of this oft-quoted line the reader should make himself acquainted with Cato's march across Libya after the death of Pompey, as told by Lucan in his 9th book.

END OF VOLUME I.