 chapter 7 part 2 of the life of Cicero volume 2. In the spring of the year Cicero lost his daughter Tullia. We have first a letter of his de Lepter, a man with whom he had become intimate, saying that he had been kept in Rome by Tullia's confinement, and that now he is still detained, though her health is sufficiently confirmed, by the expectation of obtaining from D'Ola Bella's agents the first repayment of her dowry. The repayment of the divorced lady's marriage portion was a thing of everyday occurrence in Rome, when she was allowed to take away as much as she had brought with her. Cicero, however, failed to get back Tullia's dowry. But he writes in good spirits. He does not think that he cares to travel any more. He has a house at Rome better than any of his villas in the country, and greater rest than in the most desert region. His studies are now never interrupted. He thinks it probable that Lepter will have to come to him before he can be induced to go to Lepter. In the meantime, let the young Lepter take care and read his Hesiod. Then he writes in the spring to Atticus, a letter from Antium, and we first hear that Tullia is dead. She had seemed to recover from childbirth, but her strength did not suffice, and she was no more. A boy had been born and was left alive. In subsequent letters we find that Cicero gives instructions concerning him and speaks of providing for him and his will, but of the child we hear nothing more, and we must surmise that he also died. Of Tullia's death we have no further particulars, but we may well imagine that the troubles of the world had been very heavy on her. The little stranger was being born at the moment of her divorce from her third husband. She was about thirty-two years of age, and it seems that Cicero had taken consolation in her misfortunes from the expected pleasure of her companionship. She was now dead, and he was left alone. She had died in February, and we know nothing of the first outbreak of his sorrow. It appears that he at first buried himself for a while in a villa belonging to Atticus near Rome, and that he then retreated his own at Astura. From thence, and afterwards from Antium, there are a large number of letters all dealing with the same subject. He declares himself to be inconsolable, but he does take consolation from two matters, from his books on philosophy, and from an idea which occurs to him that he will perpetuate the name of Tullia for ever by the erection of a monument that shall be as nearly immortal as stones and bricks can make it. His letters to Atticus at this time are tedious to the general reader because he reiterates so often his instructions as to the purchase of the garden near Rome in which the monument is to be built, but they are at the same time touching and natural. "'Nothing has been written,' he says, for the lessening of grief which I have not read at your house, but my sorrow breaks through it all.' Then he tells Atticus that he too has endeavoured to console himself by writing a treatise on consolation. Whole days I write, not that it does any good.' In that he was wrong. He could find no cure for his grief, but he did know that continued occupation would relieve him, and therefore he occupied himself continually. Totostia is scruble. By doing so he did contrive not to break his heart. In a subsequent letter he says, reading and writing do not soften it, but they deaden it. On the Appian Way, a short distance out of Rome, the traveller is shown a picturesque ancient building of enormous strength called the Mole of Caecilia Metella. It is a castle in size, but it is believed to have been the tomb erected to the memory of Caecilia, the daughter of Metella's criticus, and the wife of Crassus the rich. History knows of her nothing more, and authentic history hardly knows so much of the stupendous monument. There it stands, however, and is supposed to be proof of what might be done for a Roman lady in the way of perpetuating her memory. She was at any rate older than Tullia, having been the wife of a man older than Tullia's father. If it be the case that this monument be of the date named, it proves to us at least that the notion of erecting such monument was then prevalent. Some idea of a similar kind, of a monument equally stupendous and that should last as long, seems to have taken a firm hold of Cicero's mind. He has read all the authors he could find on the subject, and they agree that it shall be done in the fashion he points out. He does not, he says, consult Atticus on the matter, nor on the architecture, for he has already settled on the design of one Cluatius. What he wants Atticus to do for him now is to assist him in buying the spot on which it shall be built. Many gardens near Rome are named. If drusus makes a difficulty, Atticus must see Damasipus. Then there are those which belong to Cica and to Cilius. But at last the matter dies away, and even the gardens are not bought. We are led to imagine that Atticus has been opposed to the monument from first to last, and that the immense cost of constructing such a temple as Cicero had contemplated is proof to him to be injudicious. There is a charming letter written to him at this time by his friend Solpicius, showing the great feeling entertained for him. But, as I have said before, I doubt whether that or any other phrases of consolation were of service to him. It was necessary for him to wait and bear it, and the more works that he did when he was bearing it, the easier it was born. Luccheus and Torquatis wrote to him on the same subject, and we have his answers. Sidenote, B.C. 45, atat 62. In September Caesar returned from Spain, having at last conquered the Republic. All hope for liberty was now gone. Atticus had instigated Cicero to write something to Caesar as to his victories, something that should be complementary, and at the same time friendly and familiar. But Cicero had replied that it was impossible. When I feel, he said, that to draw the breath of life is in itself base, how base would be my ascent to what has been done. But it is not only that, there are not words in which such a letter ever can be written. Do you not know that Aristotle, when he addressed himself to Alexander, wrote to a youth who had been modest, but then when he had once heard himself called king, he became proud, cruel, and unrestrained. How then shall I now write in terms which are suffice for his pride, to the man who has been equaled to Romulus? It was true, Caesar had now returned inflated with such pride, that Brutus and Cassius and Cascar could no longer endure him. He came back and triumphed over the five lands in which he had conquered, not the enemies of Rome, but Rome itself. He triumphed nominally over the Gauls, the Egyptians, the Asiatics of Pontus, over the Africans, and the Spaniards, but his triumph was in truth over the Republic. There appears from Sotonius to have been five separate triumphal processions, each at the interval of a few days. Amidst the glory of the first, Vercingetorix was strangled. To the glory of the third was added, as Sotonius tells us, these words, wheni, wedi, wiki, displayed on a banner. This, I think, more likely than that he had written them on an official dispatch. We are told that the people of Rome refuse to show any pleasure, and that even his own soldiers had enough in them of the Roman spirit to feel resentment at his assumption of the attributes of a king. Cicero makes but little mention of these gala doings in his letters. He did not see them, but wrote back word to Atticus, who had described it all. An absurd pomp, he says, alluding to the carriage of the image of Caesar, together with that of the gods. And he applauds the people who would not clap their hands, even in approval of the goddess of victory, because she had shown herself in such bad company. There are, however, but three lines on the subject, showing how little there is in that statement of Cornelius Nepos, that he who had read Cicero's letters carefully, wanted but little more to be well informed of the history of the day. Caesar was not a man likely to be turned away from his purpose of ruling well by personal pride. Less likely, we should say, than any self-made despot dealt with in history. He did make efforts to be as he was before. He endeavored to live on terms of friendship with his old friends. But the spirit of pride which had taken hold of him was too much for him. Power had got possession of him, and he could not stand against it. It was sad to see the way in which it compelled him to make himself a prey to the conspirators. Were it not that we learn from history how impossible it is that a man should raise himself above the control of his fellow men without suffering. During these days Cicero kept himself in the country, giving himself up to his philosophical writings, and indulging in grief for Tullia. Efforts were repeatedly made to bring him to Rome, and he tells Atticus in irony that if he has wanted there simply as an augur, the augurs have nothing to do with the opening of temples. In the same letter he speaks of an interview he has just had with his nephew Quintus, who had come to him in his disgrace. He wants to go to the Parthian War, but he has not money to support him. Then Cicero uses, as he says, the eloquence of Atticus, and holds his tongue. We can imagine how very unpleasant the interview must have been. Cicero, however, decides that he will go up to the city, so that he may have Atticus with him on his birthday. Sidenote, B.C. 45, I. Tat. 62. This letter was written towards the close of the year, and Cicero's birthday was the third of January. He then goes to Rome, and undertakes to plead the cause of Deotarus, the king of Galatia, before Caesar. This very old man had years ago become allied with Pompey, and as far as we can judge had been singularly true to his idea of Roman power. He had seen Pompey in all his glory when Pompey had come to fight Mithridates. The tetrax in Asia Minor, of whom this Deotarus was one, had a hard part to play when the Romans came among them. They were forced to comply either with their natural tendency to resist their oppressors, or else were obliged to fleece their subjects in order to satisfy the cupidity of the invaders. We remember Ariobazanes, who sent his subjects in gangs to Rome, to be sold as slaves, in order to pay Pompey the interest on his debt. Deotarus had similarly found his best protection in being loyal to Pompey, and had in return been made king of Armenia by a decree of the Roman senate. He joined Pompey at the Farcellus, and when the battle was over, returned to his own country, to look for further forces wherewith to aid the republic. Unfortunately for him, Caesar was the conqueror, and Deotarus found himself obliged to assist the conqueror with his troops. Caesar seems never to have given him his friendship for Pompey. He was not a Roman, and was unworthy of forgiveness. Caesar took away from him the kingdom of Armenia, but left him still titular king of Galatia. But this enmity was known in the king's own court, and among his own family. His own daughter's son, Von Castor, became desirous of ruining his grandfather and brought a charge against the king. Caesar had been the king's compelled guest in his journey in quest of fanacies, and had passed quickly on. Now when the war was over, and Caesar had returned from his five concord nations, Castor came forward with his accusation. Deotarus, according to his grandson, had endeavoured to murder Caesar while Caesar was staying with him. At this distance of time and place we cannot presume to know accurately what the circumstances were, but it appears to have been below the dignity of Caesar to listen to such a charge. He did so, however, and heard more than one speech on the subject delivered in favour of the accused. Brutus spoke on behalf of the aged king, and spoke in vain. Cicero did not speak in vain, for Caesar decided that he would pronounce no verdict till he had himself been again in the east, and had there made further inquiries. He never returned to the east, but the old king lived to fight once more, and again on the losing side. He was true to the party he had taken, and ranged himself with Brutus and Cassius at the field of Philippi. The case was tried, if tried it can be called, in Caesar's private house, in which the audience cannot have been numerous. Caesar seems to have admitted Cicero to say what could be said for his friend, rather than as advocate to plead for his client, so that no one should accuse him, Caesar, of cruelty in condemning the criminal. The speech must have occupied twenty minutes in the delivery, and we are again at a loss to conceive how Caesar should have found the time to listen to it. Cicero declares that he feels the difficulty of pleading in so unusual a place, within the domestic walls of a man's private house, and without any of those accustomed supports to oratory which are to be found in a crowded law court. But, he says, I rest in peace when I look into your eyes and behold your countenance. The speech is full of flattery, but it has turned so adroitly that we almost forgive it. There is a passage in which Cicero complements the victor on his well-known mercy in his victories, from which we may see how much Caesar thought of the character he had achieved to himself in this particular. Of you alone, O Caesar, is it boasted that no one has fallen under your hands, but they who have died with arms in their hands. All who have been taken have been pardoned. No man had been put to death when the absolute fighting was put to an end. Caesar had given quarter to all. It is the modern, generous way of fighting. When our country is invaded and we drive back the invaders, we do not, if victorious, slaughter their chief men. Much less when we invade a country do we kill or mutilate all those who have endeavored to protect their own homes. Caesar has evidently much to boast, and among the Italians he has caused it to be believed. It suited Cicero to assert it in Caesar's ears. Caesar wished to be told of his own clemency among the men of his own country. But because Caesar boasted, and Cicero was complacent, posterity is not to run away with the boast and call it true. For all that is great in Caesar's character I am willing to give him credit, but not for mercy. Not for any of those divine gifts, the loveliness of which was only beginning to be perceived in those days by some few who were in advance of their time. It was still the maxim of Rome that a supplicatio should be granted only when two thousand of the enemy should have been left on the field. We have something still left of the pagan cruelty about us when we send triumphant words of the numbers slain on the field of battle. We cannot but remember that Caesar had killed the whole senate of the Veneti, a nation dwelling on the coast of Brittany, and had sold all the people as slaves because they had detained the messengers he had sent to them during his wars in Gaul. Graeus vindicandum statuit. He had thought it necessary to punish them somewhat severely. Therefore he had killed the entire senate and enslaved the entire people. This is only one of the instances of wholesale horrible cruelty which he committed throughout his war in Gaul, of cruelty so frightful that we shudder as we think of the sufferings of past ages. The ages have gone their way and the sufferings are lessened by increased humanity. But we cannot allow Cicero's compliment to pass idly by. The Nemo Nici Armatus referred to Italians, and to Italians we may take it of the upper rank among whom for the sake of dramatic effect Deotarus was placed for the occasion. This was the last of Cicero's casual speeches. It was now near the end of the year, and on the Ides of March following it was fated that Caesar should die. After which there was a lull in the storm for a while, and then Cicero broke out into that which I have called his final scream of liberty. There came the Philippics, and then the end. This speech of which I have given record as spoken Prorege Deotaro was the last delivered by him for a private purpose. Forty-two he has spoken hitherto, of which something of the story has been told. The Philippics of which I have got to speak are fourteen in number, making the total number of speeches which we possess to be fifty-six. But of those spoken by him we have not a half, and of those which we possess some have been declared by the great critics to be absolutely spurious. The great critics have perhaps been too hard upon them. They have all been polished. Cicero himself was so anxious for his future fame that he led the way in preparing them for the press. Guintillian tells us that Tyro adapted them. Others again have come after and have retouched them, sometimes no doubt making them smoother and striking out morsels which would naturally become unintelligible to later readers. We know what he himself did to the Milo. Others subsequently may have received rougher usage, but still from loving hands. Bits have been lost and other bits interpolated, and in this way have come to us the speeches which we possess. But we know enough of the history of the times, and are sufficient judges of the language, to accept them as upon the whole authentic. The great critic, when he comes upon a passage against which his very soul recoils, on the score of its halting Latinity, rises up in wrath and tears the oration to tatters till he will have none of it. One set of objectionable words he encounters after another, till the whole seems to him to be damnable, and the oration is condemned. It has been well to allude to this, because in dealing with these orations it is necessary to point out that every word cannot be accepted as having been spoken as we find it printed. Taken collectively, we may accept them as a stupendous monument of human eloquence and human perseverance. Sidenote, B.C. 45, I.T. 62. Late in the year, on the twelfth before the calendar of January, or the twenty-first of December, there took place a little party at Putireli, the account of which interests us. Cicero entertained Caesar to supper. Though the date is given as above, and though December had originally been intended to signify, as it does with us, a winter month, the year from want of proper knowledge had run itself out of order, and the period was now that of October. The amendment of the calendar which was made under Caesar's auspices had not as yet been brought into use, and we must understand that October, the most delightful month of the year, was the period in question. Cicero was staying at his Putirelin villa, not far from Baye, close upon the seashore, the corner of the world most loved by all the great Romans of the day, for their retreat in autumn. Putireli, we may imagine, was as pleasant as Baye, but less fashionable, and if all that we hear be true, less immoral. Here Cicero had one of his villas, and here, a few months before his death, Caesar came to visit him. He gives, in a very few lines to Atticus, a graphic account of the entertainment. Caesar had sent onward to say that he was coming, so that Cicero was prepared for him. But the Lord of all the world had already made himself so evidently the Lord, that Cicero could not entertain him without certain of those inner quakings of the heart which are common to us now when some great magnate may come across our path and demand hospitality for a moment. Cicero jokes at his own solicitude, but nevertheless we know that he has felt it when on the next morning he sent Atticus an account of it. His guest has been a burden to him indeed, but still he does not regret it, for the guest behaved himself so pleasantly. We must remark that Cicero did not ostensibly shake in his shoes before him. Cicero had been consul, and has had to lead the Senate when Caesar was probably anxious to escape himself as an undetected conspirator. Caesar has grown since, but only by degrees. He has not become, as Augustus did, facile prinkeps. He is aware of his own power, but aware also that it becomes him to ignore his own knowledge. And Cicero is also aware of it, but conscious at the same time of a nominal equality. Caesar is now dictator, has been consul four times, and will be consul again when the new year comes on. But other Romans have been dictator and consul, all of which Caesar feels on the occasion and shows that he feels it. Cicero feels it also, and endeavours not quite successfully to hide it. Caesar has come, accompanied by troops, Cicero names two thousand men, probably at random. When Cicero hears that they have come into the neighbourhood he is terribly put about, till one Barbara Cassius, a lieutenant in Caesar's employment, comes and reassures him. A camp is made for the men outside in the fields, and a guard is put on to protect the villa. On the following day, about one o'clock, Caesar comes. He is shut up at the house of one Philippus, and will admit no one. He is supposed to be transacting accounts with Balbus. We can imagine how Cicero's cooks were boiling and stewing at the time. Then the great man walked down upon the seashore. Rome was the only recognised nation in the world. The others were provinces of Rome, and the rest were outlying barbaric people, hardly as yet fit to be Roman provinces. And he was now Lord of Rome. Did he think of this as he walked on the shore of Putile, or of the ceremony he was about to encounter before he had his dinner? He did not walk long for at two o'clock he bathed, and heard that story about Mamura, without moving a muscle. Turn to your Catullus, the fifty-seventh epigram, and read what Caesar had read to him on this occasion, without showing by his face the slightest feeling. It is short enough, but I cannot quote it, even in a note, even in Latin. Who told Caesar of the foul words, and why were they read to him on this occasion? He thought but little about them, for he forgave the author, and asked him afterwards to supper. This was at the bath, we may suppose. He then took a siesta, and after that a metichane agibat. How the Romans went through the daily process and lived is to us a marvel. I think we may say that Cicero did not practice it. Caesar on this occasion ate and drank plentiously, and with pleasure. It was all well arranged, and the conversation was good of its kind, witty and pleasant. Caesar's couch seems to have been in the midst, and around him lay supping at other tables, his freedmen and the rest of his suite. It was all very well. But still, says Cicero, he was not such a guest that you would welcome back, not wonder whom you would say, come again I beg when you return this way. Once is enough. There were no politics talked, nothing of serious matters. Caesar had begun to find now that no use could be made of Cicero for politics. He had tried that, and had given it up. Philology was the subject, the science of literature and languages. Caesar could talk literature as well as Cicero, and turned the conversation in that direction. Cicero was apt and took the desired part, and so the afternoon passed pleasantly, but still was a little feeling that he was glad when his guest was gone. Caesar declared as he went that he would spend one day at Pitelli and another at Biai. Dolabella had a villa down in those parts, and Cicero knows that Caesar, as he passed by Dolabella's house, rode in the midst of soldiers, in state, as we should say, but that he had not done this anywhere else. He had already promised Dolabella the consulship. Was Cicero mean in his conduct towards Caesar? Up to this moment there had been nothing mean, except that Roman flattery which was simply Roman good manners. He had opposed him at Farsalia, or rather in Macedonia. He had gone across the water, not to fight, for he was no fighting man, but to show on which side he had placed himself. He had done this not believing in Pompey, but still convinced that it was his duty to let all men know that he was against Caesar. He had resisted every attempt which Caesar had made to purchase his services, and either with Pompey nor with Caesar, did he agree. But with the former, though he feared that a second Sulla would arise should he be victorious, there was some touch of the Old Republic. Nothing might have been done then to carry on the government upon the Old Lines. Caesar had shown his intention to be lord of all, and with that Cicero could hold no sympathy. Caesar had seen his position, and had respected it. He would have nothing done to drive such a man from Rome. Under these circumstances Cicero consented to live at Rome, or in the neighbourhood, and became a man of letters. It must be remembered that up to the Ides of March he had heard of no conspiracy. The two men, Caesar and Cicero, had agreed to differ, and had talked of philology when they met. There has been, I think, as yet nothing mean in his conduct. After the Dylan-party at Paterli, described in the last chapter, Cicero came up to Rome and was engaged in literary pursuits. Caesar was now master and lord of everything. In January Cicero wrote to his friend Curio, and told him with disgust of the tomfooleries which were being carried on at the election of choistors. An empty chair had been put down, and was declared to be the consul's chair. Then it was taken away, and another chair was placed, and another consul was declared. It wanted then but a few hours to the end of the consul a year, but not the less was Caninius, the new consul, appointed, who would not sleep during his consul's ship, which lasted but from midday to the evening. If you saw all this you would not fail to weep, says Cicero. After this he seems to have recovered from his sorrow. We have a correspondence with Poetus, which always typifies hilarity of spirits. There is a discussion, of which we have but the one side, on du l'entendre and plain speaking. Poetus had advocated the propriety of calling a spade a spade, and Cicero shows him the inexpediency. Then we come suddenly upon his letter to Atticus, written on the 7th of April, three weeks after the fall of Caesar. Momsson endeavours to explain the intention of Caesar in the adoption of the names by which he chose to be called, and in his acceptance of those which without his choosing were imposed upon him. He has done it perhaps with too great precision, but he leaves upon our minds a correct idea of the resolution which Caesar had made to be King, Emperor, Dictator, or what not, before he started for Macedonia, B.C. 49, and the disinclination which moved him at once to proclaim himself a tyrant. Dictator was the title which he first assumed, as being temporary, Roman, and in a certain degree usual. He was dictator for an indefinite period, annually, for ten years, and when he died had been designated dictator for life. He had already been, for the last two years, named imperator for life, but that title, which I think to have had a military sound in Men's ears, though it may, as Momsson says, imply also civil rule, was not enough to convey to men all that it was necessary that they should understand, till the moment of his triumph had come, that Wenny Weedy Weaky had been flaunted in the eyes of Rome, till Caesar, though he had been ashamed to call himself a king, had consented to be associated with the gods, Brutus, Cassius, and those others, sixty in number, we are told, who became the conspirators, had hardly realized the fact that the Republic was altogether at an end. A bitter time had come upon them, but it was softened by the personal urbanity of the victor. But now, gradually, the truth was declaring itself, and the conspiracy was formed. I am inclined to think that Shakespeare has been right in his conception of the plot. I do fear the people choose Caesar for their king, says Brutus. I had as leaf not be, as live to be in awe of such a thing as I myself, says Cassius. It has come home to them at length that Caesar was to be king, and therefore they conspired. It would be a difficult task in the present era to recommend to my readers the murderers of Caesar as honest, loyal politicians who did for their country in its emergency the best that the circumstances would allow. The feeling of the world in regard to murder has so changed during the last two thousand years that men, hindered by their sense of what is at present odious, refused to throw themselves back into the condition of things, a knowledge of which can have come to them only from books. They measure events individually by the present scale, and refused to see that Brutus should be judged by us now, in reference to the judgment that was formed of it then. In an age in which it was considered wise and fitting to destroy the nobles of a barbarous community which had defended itself and to sell all others as slaves, so that the perpetrator simply recorded the act he had done as though necessary, can it have been a base thing to kill a tyrant? Was it considered base by other Romans of the day? Was that plea ever made even by Caesar's friends? Or was it not acknowledged by them all that Brutus was an honourable man, even when they had collected themselves sufficiently to look upon him as an enemy? It appears abundantly in Cicero's letters that no one dreamed of regarding them as we regard assassins now, or spoke of Caesar's death as we look upon assassination. Shall we defend the deeds of him at whose death we are rejoiced, he says? And again he deplores the feeling of regret which was growing in Rome on account of Caesar's death, lest it should be dangerous to those who have slain the tyrant for us. We find that Quintilian, among his stock lessons in oratory, constantly refers to the old established rule that a man did a good deed who had killed a tyrant, a lesson which he had taken from the Greek teachers. We are therefore bound to accept this murder as a thing praiseworthy according to the light of the age in which it was done, and to recognise the fact that it was so regarded by the men of the day. We are told now that Cicero hated Caesar. There was no such hatred as the word implies, and we are told of assassins with an intention to bring down on the perpetrators of the deed the odium they would have deserved had the deed been done to-day. But the word has, I think, been misused. A king was abominable to Roman ears, and was especially distasteful to men like Cicero, Brutus, and the other optimates who claimed to be peers. To be Prumus inter pares had been Cicero's ambition. To be the leading oligarch of the day. Caesar had gradually mounted higher and still higher, but always leaving some hope, infinitesimally small at the last, that he might be induced to submit himself to the Republic. Sulla had submitted. Personally there was no hatred, but that hope had almost vanished, and therefore, judging as a Roman, when the deed was done, Cicero believed to have been a glorious deed. There can be no doubt on that subject. The passages in which he praises it are too numerous for direct quotation, but there they are interspersed through the letters and the Philippics. There was no doubt of his approval. The assassination of Caesar, if that is to be the word used, was to his idea a glorious act done on behalf of humanity. The all-powerful tyrant who had usurped dominion over his country, had been made away with, and again they might fall back upon the law. He had filched the army. He had run through various provinces, and had enriched himself with their wealth. He was above all law. He was worse than a Marius or a Sulla who confessed themselves by their open violence to be temporary evils. Caesar was creating himself king for all time. No law had established him, no pled the sight of the nation had endowed him with kingly power. With his life in his hands he had dared to do it and was almost successful. It is of no purpose to say that he was right and Cicero was wrong in their views as to the government of so mean a people as the Romans had become. Cicero's form of government, under men who were not Cicero's, had been wrong, and had led to a state of things in which a tyrant might for the time be the lesser evil. But not on that account was Cicero wrong to applaud the deed which removed Caesar. Middleton, in his life, volume 2 page 435, gives us the opinion of Suetonius on this subject, and tells us that the best and wisest men in Rome supposed Caesar to have been justly killed. Mr. Forsythe generously abstains from blaming the deed as to which he leaves his readers to form their own opinion. Arbican expresses no opinion concerning its morality, nor does Marabin. It is the critics of Cicero's works who have condemned him without thinking much, perhaps, of the judgment they have given. But Cicero was not in the conspiracy, nor had he even contemplated Caesar's death. Assertions to the contrary have been made both lately and in former years, but without foundation. I have already alluded to some of these, and I have shown that phrases in his letters have been misinterpreted. A passage was quoted by Monsieur de Rozoire to Atticus Book XIII. I don't think that he can endure longer than six months. He must fall even if we do nothing. How often might it be said that the murder of an English minister had been intended if the utterings of such words be taken as a testimony? He quotes again, to Atticus Book 1340. What good news could Brutus hear of Caesar unless that he hung himself? This is to be taken as meditating Caesar's death, and is quoted by a French critic after two thousand years in proof of Cicero's fatal ill will. The whole tenor of Cicero's letters proves that he had never entertained the idea of Caesar's destruction. How long before the time the conspiracy may have been in existence we have no means of knowing. But we feel that Cicero was not a man likely to be taken into the plot. He would have dissuaded Brutus and Cassius. Judging from what we know of his character we think that he would have distrusted its success. Though he rejoiced in it after it was done, he would have been wretched while burdened with the secret. At any rate we have the fact that he was not so burdened. The sight of Caesar's slaughter when he saw it must have struck him with infinite surprise. But we have no knowledge of what his feelings may have been when the crowd had gathered round the doomed man. Cicero has left us no description of the moment in which Caesar is supposed to have gathered his toger over his face so that he might fall with dignity. It certainly is the case that when you take your facts from the chance correspondence of a man you lose something of the most touching episodes of the day. The writer passes these things by as having been surely handled elsewhere. It is always so with Cicero. The trial of Milo, the passing of the Rubicon, the battle of the Farsilis and the murder of Pompey are, with the death of Caesar, alike unnoticed. I have paid him a visit as to whom we spoke this morning. Nothing could be more forlorn. It is thus the next letter begins after Caesar's death, and the person he refers to is Mattius, Caesar's friend. But in three weeks the world had become used to Caesar's death. The scene had passed away and the inhabitants of Rome were already becoming accustomed to his absence. But there can be no doubt as to Cicero's presence at Caesar's fall. He says so clearly to Atticus. Moribin throws a doubt upon it. The story goes that Brutus, descending from the platform on which Caesar had been seated, and brandishing the bloody dagger in his hand, appealed to Cicero. Moribin says that there is no proof of this, and alleges that Brutus did it for stage effect. But he cannot have seen the letter above quoted, or seeing it must have misunderstood it. It soon became evident to the conspirators that they had scotched the snake and not killed it. Cassius and others had desired that Antony also should be killed, and with him lepidus. That Antony would be dangerous, they were sure. But Marcus Brutus and Decimus overruled their councils. Marcus had declared that the blood of the tyrant was all that the people required. The people required nothing of the kind. They were desirous only of ease and quiet, and were anxious to follow either side which might be able to lead them, and had something to give away. But Antony had been spared, and though cowed at the moment by the death of Caesar and by the assumption of a certain dignified forbearance on the part of the conspirators, was soon ready again to fight the battle for the Caesareans. It is singular to see how completely he was cowed, and how quickly he recovered himself. Monson finishes his history with a loud peon in praise of Caesar, but does not tell us of his death. His readers, had they nothing else to inform them, might be led to suppose that he had gone direct to heaven, or at any rate had vanished from the world as soon as he had made the empire perfect. He seems to have thought that had he described the work of the daggers in the Senate House, he would have acknowledged the mortality of his godlike hero. We have no right to complain of his omissions. For research, for labour and for accuracy he has produced a work almost without parallel, that he should have seen how great was Caesar because he accomplished so much, and that he should have thought Cicero to be small, because, burdened with scruples of justice, he did so little, is in the idiosyncrasy of the man. A Caesar was wanted, impervious to clemency, to justice, to moderation, a man who could work with any tools. Men had forgotten what honesty was, a person who refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright man, but as a personal foe. Caesar took money, and gave bribes when he had the money to pay them, without a scruple. It would be absurd to talk about him as dishonest. He was, above honesty. He was supragramaticam. It is well that some one should have arisen to sing the praises of such a man, some two or three in these latter days. To me the character of the man is unpleasant to contemplate, unimpressionable, very far from divine. There is nothing of the human softness necessary for love, none of the human weakness needed for sympathy. On the fifteenth of March Caesar fell. When the murder had been effected, Brutus and the others concerned in it, went out among the people, expecting to be greeted as saviours of their country. Brutus did address the populace, and was well received, but some bad feelings seems to have been aroused by hard expressions as to Caesar's memory coming from one of the Pritols. For the people, though they regarded Caesar as a tyrant, and expressed themselves as gratified when told that the would-be king had been slaughtered, still did not endure to hear ill-spoken of him. He had understood that it behoves the tyrant to be generous, and appeared among them always with full hands, not having been scrupulous as to his mode of filling them. Then the conspirators, frightened at menacing words from the crowd, betook themselves to the capital. Why they should have gone to the capital as to a sanctuary I do not think that we know. The capital is that hill to a portion of which accesses now had by the steps of the church of the Araceli in front, and from the forum in the rear. On one side was the fall from the Tarpeyn Rock, down which malefactors were flung. On the top of it was the temple to Jupiter, standing on the site of the present church. And it was here that Brutus and Cassius and the other conspirators sought for safety on the evening of the day on which Caesar had been killed. Here they remained for the two following days, till on the eighteenth they ventured down into the city. On the seventeenth D'Olebella claimed to be consul in compliance with Caesar's promise, and on the same day the senate, moved by Antony, decreed a public funeral to Caesar. We may imagine that the decree was made by them with fainting hearts. There were many fainting hearts in Rome during those days, for it became very soon apparent that the conspirators had carried their plot no further than the death of Caesar. Brutus, as far as the public service was concerned, was an unpractical, useless man. We know nothing of public work done by him to much purpose. He was filled with high ideas as to his own position among the oligarchs, and with his special notions as to what was due by Rome to men of his name. He had a fierce conception of his own rights, among which to be praetor and consul and governor of the province were among the number. But he had taken early in life to literature and philosophy, and eschewed the crowd of fishponders such as were Antony and D'Olebella, men prone to indulge the luxury of their own senses. His idea of liberty seemed to have been much the same as Cicero's, the liberty to live as one of the first men in Rome. But it was not accompanied, as it was with Cicero, by an innate desire to do good to those around him. To maintain the praetors, consuls, and governors, so that each man high in position should win his way to them as he might be able to obtain the voices of the people, and not to leave them to be bestowed at the call of one man who had thrust himself higher than all, that seems to have been his buoy d'ial of Roman government. It was Cicero's also, with the addition that when he had achieved his high place he should serve the people honestly. Brutus had killed Caesar, but had spared Antony, thinking that all things would fall into their accustomed places when the tyrant should be no more. But he found that Caesar had been tyrant long enough to create a lust for tyranny, and that though he might suffice to kill a king, he had no aptitude for ruling a people. It was now that those scenes took place which Shakespeare has described with such accuracy, the public funeral, Antony's aeration, and the rising of the people against the conspirators. Antony, when he found that no plan had been devised for carrying on the government, and that the men were struck by amazement at the deed they had themselves done, collected as the warts, and did his best to put himself in Caesar's place. Cicero had pleaded in the Senate for a general amnesty, and had carried it as far as the voice of the Senate could do so. But the amnesty only intended that men should pretend to think that all should be forgotten and forgiven. There was no forgiving, as there could be no forgetting. Then Caesar's will was brought forth. They could surely not dispute his will or destroy it. In this way Antony got hold of the dead man's papers, and with the aid of the dead man's private secretary, or Emanuensis, one Fabricius, began a series of most unblushing forgeries. He procured, or said that he procured, a decree to be passed confirming by law all Caesar's written purposes. Such a decree he could use to any extent to which he could carry with him the sympathies of the people. He did use it, to a great extent, and seems at this period to have contemplated the assumption of dictatorial power in his own hands. Antony was nearly being one of the greatest rascals the world has known. The desire was there, and so was the intellect, had it not been weighted by personal luxury and indulgence. Now young Octavius came upon the scene. He was the great nephew of Caesar, whose sister Julia had married one Marcus Arteus. Their daughter Artea had married Caesauctavius, and of that marriage Augustus was the child. When Octavius the father died, Artea the widow married Marcus Philippus, who was Consul BC 56. Caesar, having known near-air, took charge of the boy, and had for the last years of his life treated him as his son, though he had not adopted him. At this period the youth had been sent to Apollonia, on the other side of the Adriatic in Macedonia, to study with Apollodorus a Greek tutor, and was there when he heard of Caesar's death. He was informed that Caesar had made him his heir, and at once crossed over into Italy with his friend Agrippa. On the way up to Rome he met Cicero at one of his southern villas, and in the presence of the great orator behaved himself with becoming respect. He was then not twenty years old, but in the present difficulty of his position conducted himself with a caution most unlike a boy. He had only come, he said, for what his great uncle had left him, and when he found that Antony had spent the money, does not appear to have expressed himself immediately in anger. He went on to Rome, where he found that Antony and Dolabella, and Marcus Brutus, and Decimus Brutus, and Cassius, were scrambling for the provinces and the legions. Some of the soldiers came to him, asking him to avenge his uncle's death, but he was too prudent as yet to declare any purpose of revenge. CHAPTER VIII. Not long after Caesar's death Cicero left Rome and spent the ensuing month travelling about among his different villas. On the fourteenth of April he writes to Atticus, declaring that whatever evil might befall him he would find comfort in the Ides of March. In the same letter he calls Brutus and the others our heroes, and begs his friend to send him news, or if not news, then a letter without news. In the next he again calls them his heroes, but adds that he can take no pleasure in anything but in the deed that had been done. Men are still praising the work of Caesar, and he laments that they should be so inconsistent. Though they lord those who had destroyed Caesar, at the same time they praise his deeds. In the same letter he tells Atticus that the people in all the villages are full of joy. It cannot be told how eager they are. Are they run out to meet me, and to hear my accounts of what was done? But the senate passes no decree. He speaks of going into Greece to see his son, whom he never lived to see again, telling him of letters from the lad from Athens, which he thinks however may be hypocritical, though he is comforted by finding their language to be clear. He has recovered his good humour, and can be jocose. One Cluvius has left him a property at Putele, and the house has tumbled down. But he has sent for Chrysippus, an architect. But what are houses falling to him? He can thank Socrates and all his followers, that they will have taught him to disregard such worldly things. Nevertheless he has deemed it expedient to take the advice of a certain friend, as to turning the tumbled down house into profitable shape. A little later he expresses his great disgust that Caesar, in the public speeches in Rome, should be spoken of as that great and most excellent man. And yet he had said, but a few months since, in his oration for King Deotarus, in the presence of Caesar, that he looked only into his eyes, only into his face, that he regarded only him. The flattery and the indignant reprobation do in truth come very near upon each other, and induce us to ask whether the fact of having to live in the presence of royalty be not injurious to the moral man. Could any of us have refused to speak to Caesar with adulation, any of us whose circumstances compelled to speak to him? Power had made Caesar desirous of a mode of address, hardly becoming a man to give or a man to receive. Does not the etiquette of today require from us certain courtesies of conversation, which I would call abject, were it not that etiquette requires them? Nevertheless, making the best allowance that I can for Cicero, the difference of his language within a month or two, is very painful. In the letter above quoted, Octavius comes to him, and we can see how willing was the young aspirant to flatter him. He sees already that, in spite of the promised amnesty, there must be in Tunisian feud. I shall have to go into the camp with young Sextus, Sextus Pompeius, or perhaps his Brutus, a prospect at my years most odious. Then he quotes two lines of Homer altering a word. To you, my child, is not given the glory of war. Elegance, charming eloquence, must be the weapon with which you will fight. We hear of his contemplated journey into Greece under the protection of a free legation. He was going for the sake of his son, but would not people say that he went to avoid the present danger, and might it not be the case that he should be of service if he remained? We see that the old state of doubt is again falling upon him. I deo my troas. Otherwise he could go and make himself safe in Athens. There is a correspondence between him and Antony, of which he sends copies to Atticus. Antony writes to him begging him to allow Sextus Claudius to return from his banishment. This Sextus had been condemned because of the riot on the death of his uncle in Milo's affair, and Antony wishes to have him back. Cicero replies that he will certainly accede to Antony's views. It had always been a law with him, he says, not to maintain a feeling of hatred against his humbler enemies. But in both these letters we see the subtlety and caution of the writers. Antony could have brought back Sextus without Cicero, and Cicero knew that he could do so. Cicero had no power over the law, but it suited Antony to write courteously a letter which might elicit an uncivil reply. Cicero, however, knew better, and answered it civilly. He writes to Tyro, telling him that he has not the slightest intention of quarrelling with his old friend Antony, and will write to Antony, but not till he shall have seen him, Tyro, showing on what terms of friendship he stands with his former slave, for Tyro had by this time been manumitted. He writes to Tyro quite as he might have written to a younger Atticus, and speaks to him of Atticus with all the familiarity of confirmed friendship. There must have been something very sweet in the nature of the intercourse which bound such a man as Cicero to such another as Tyro. Atticus applies to him, desiring him to use his influence respecting a certain question of importance as to B'throtum. B'throtum was a town in a pyrus opposite to the island of Corsaira in which Atticus had an important interest. The lands about the place were to be divided and to be distributed to Roman soldiers, much as we may suppose to the injury of Atticus. He has earnestly begged the interference of Cicero for the protection of the B'throtians, and Cicero tells him that he wishes he could have seen Antony on the subject, but Antony is too much busyed looking after the soldiers in the campania. Cicero fails to have the wishes of Atticus carried out, and shortly the subject becomes lost in the general confusion. But the discussion shows of how much importance at the present moment Cicero's interference with Antony is considered. It shows also that up to this period, a few months previous to the envenomed hatred of the Second Philippic, Antony and Cicero were presumed to be on terms of intimate friendship. The worship of Caesar has been commenced in Rome, and an altar had been set up to him in the forum as to a god. Had Caesar, when he perished, been said to have usurped the sovereign authority, his body would have been thrown out as unworthy of noble treatment. Such treatment the custom of the republic required. It had been allowed to be buried, and had been honoured, not disgraced. Now, on the spot where the funeral-pile had been made, the altar was erected, and crowds of men clamoured round it, worshipping. That this was the work of Antony we cannot doubt. But Dolabella, Cicero's repudiated son-in-law, who in furtherance of a promise from Caesar had seized the consulship, was jealous of Antony, and caused the altar to be thrown down, and the worshipers to be dispersed. Many were killed in the struggle, for though the republic was so jealous of the lives of the citizens as not to allow a criminal to be executed without an expression of the voice of the entire people, any number might fall in a street tumult, and but little would be thought about it. Dolabella destroyed the altar, and Cicero was profuse in his thanks. For though Tullia had been divorced, and had since died, there was no cause for a quarrel. Divorces were so common that no family odium was necessarily created. Cicero was at this moment most anxious to get back from Dolabella his daughter's dowry. It was never repaid. Indeed, a time was quickly coming in which such payments were out of the question, and Dolabella soon took aside altogether a pose to the republic, for which he cared nothing. He was bought by Antony, having been ready to be bought by any one. He went to Syria as governor before the end of the year, and at Smyrna on his road he committed one of those acts of horror on Trebonius, an adverse governor, in which the Romans of the day would revel when liberated from control. Cassius came to avenge his friend Trebonius, and Dolabella, being himself worsted, destroyed himself. He had not progressed so far in corruption as varies, because time had not permitted it. But that was the direction in which he was travelling. At the present moment, however, no praise was too furthered to be bestowed upon him by Cicero's pen. That turning of Caesar into a god was opposed to every feeling of his heart, both as to men and as to gods. A little further on we find him complaining of the state of things very grievously. That we should have feared this thing and not have feared the other, meaning Caesar and Antony. He declares that he must often read, for his own consolation, his treatise on old age, then just written and addressed to Atticus. Old age is making me bitter, he says. I am annoyed at everything. But my life has been lived. Let the young look to the future. We here meet the name of Chirelia in a letter to his friend. She had probably been sent to make up the quarrel between him and his young wife Publilia. Nothing came of it, and it is mentioned only because Chirelia's name has been joined so often with that of Cicero by subsequent writers. In the whole course of his correspondence with Atticus I did not remember it to occur except in one or two letters at this period. I imagine that some story respecting the lady was handed down, and was published by Dio Cassius when the Greek historian found that it served his purpose to abuse Cicero. On June the 22nd he sent news to Atticus of his nephew. Young Quintus had written home to his father to declare his repentance. He had been in receipt of money from Antony, and had done Antony's dirty work. He had been Antony Dextella, Antony's right hand, according to Cicero, and had quarrelled absolutely with his father and his uncle. He now expresses his sorrow and declares that he would come himself at once, but that there might be danger to his father. And there is money to be expected if he will only wait. Did you ever hear of a worse nave, Cicero adds? Probably not, but yet he was able to convince his father and his uncle, and some time afterwards absolutely offered to prosecute Antony for stealing the public money out of the treasury. He thought, as did some others, that the course of things was going against Antony. As a consequence of this he was named in the prescriptions and killed with his father. In the same letter Cicero consults Atticus as to the best mode of going to Greece. Brindisium is the usual way, but he has been told by a Tyro that there are soldiers in the town. He is now at Arpenium on his journey and receives a letter from Brutus inviting him back to Rome to see the games given by Brutus. He is annoyed to think that Brutus should expect this. These shows are now only honourable to him who is bound to give them, he says. I am not bound to see them, and to be present would be dishonourable. Then comes his parting with Atticus, showing a demonstrative tenderness, foreign to the sternness of our northern nature, that you should have wept when you had parted from me, has grieved me greatly. Had you done it in my presence I should not have gone at all. Knowness Ulyse, he exclaims, the name of July had already come into use, the name which has been in use ever since, the name of the man who had now been destroyed. The idea distresses him. Shall Brutus talk of July? It seems that some advertisement had been published as to his games in which the month was so called. Writing from one of his villas in the south, he tells Atticus that his nephew has again been with him and has repented him of all his sins. I think that Cicero never wrote anything vainer than this. He has been so changed, he says, by reading some of my writings which I happen to have by me, and by my words and precepts, that he is just such a citizen as I would have him. Could it be that he should suppose that one whom he had a few days since described as the biggest nave he knew should be so changed by a few words well written and well pronounced? Young Quintus must, in truth, have been a clever nave. In the same letter Cicero tells us that Tyro had collected about seventy of his letters with a view to publication. We have at present over seven hundred written before that day. Just as he is starting he gives his friend a very wide commission. By your love for me do manage my matters for me. I have left enough to pay everything that I owe, but it will happen, as it often does, that they who owe me will not be punctual. If anything of that kind should happen only think of my character. Put me right before the world by borrowing or even selling, if it be necessary. This is not the language of a man in distress, but of one anxious that none should lose a shilling by him. He again thinks of starting from Brindisium and promises when he has arrived there instantly to begin a new work. He has sent his De Gloria to Atticus, a treatise which we have lost. We should be glad to know how he treated this most difficult subject. We are astonished at his fecundity and readiness. He was now nearly sixty-three, and as he travels about the country he takes with him all the adjuncts necessary for the writing of treatises such as he composed at this period of his life. His topica containing Aristotelian instructions as to a lawyer's work he put together on board ship immediately after this, for the benefit of Trabatius to whom it had been promised. July had come, and at last he resolved to sail from Pompeii and to coast round to Sicily. He lands for a night at Avelia, where he finds Brutus, with whom he has an interview. Then he writes a letter to Trabatius, who had there a charming villa, bought no doubt with gallic spoils. He is reminded of his promise, and going on to Regium writes his topica, which he sends to Trabatius from that place. Thence he went across to Syracuse, but was afraid to stay there, fearing that his motions might be watched, and that Antony would think that he had objects of state in his journey. He had already been told that some attributed his going to a desire to be present at the Olympian Games, but the first notion seems to have been that he had given the Republic up as lost, and was seeking safety elsewhere. From this we are made to perceive how closely his motivations were watched, and how much men thought of them. From Syracuse he started for Athens, which place, however, he was never doomed to see again. He was carried back to Leucopetra on the Continent, and though he made another effort, he was, he says, again brought back. There, at the villa of his friend Valerius, he learned tidings which induced him to change his purpose, and hurry off to Rome. Brutus and Cassius had published a decree of the Senate, calling all the Senators, and especially the Consulers, to Rome. There was reason to suppose that Antony was willing to relax his pretensions. They had strenuously demanded his attendance, and whispers were heard that he had fled from the difficulties of the times. When I heard this, I at once abandoned my journey, with which indeed I had never been well pleased. Then he enters into a long disquisition with Atticus as to the advice which had been given to him, both by Atticus and by Brutus, and he says some hard words to Atticus. But he leaves an impression on the reader's mind that Brutus had so disturbed him by what had passed between them at Velia, that from that moment his doubts as to going, which had always been strong, had overmastered him. It was not the winds at Leucopetra that hindered his journey, but the taunting words which Brutus had spoken. It was suggested to him that he was deserting his country. The reproach had been felt by him to be heavy, for he had promised to Atticus that he would return by the first of January, yet he could not but feel that there was something in it of truth. The very months during which he would be absent would be the months of danger. Indeed, looking out upon the political horizon then it seemed as though the nearest months, those they were then passing, would be the most dangerous. If Antony could be got rid of, be made to leave Italy, there might be something for an honest senator to do, a man with consular authority, a something which might not jeopardize his life. When men now call a politician of those days a coward for wishing to avoid the heat of the battle, they hardly think what it is for an old man to leave his retreat and rush into the forum, and there encounter such a one as Antony, and such soldiers as were his soldiers. Cicero, who had been brave enough in the emergencies of his career, and had gone about his work sometimes regardless of his life, no doubt thought of all this. It would be pleasant to him again to see his son, and to look upon the rough doings of Rome from amidst the safety of Athens. But when his countrymen told him that he had not, as yet, done enough, when Brutus with his cold, bitter words rebuked him for going, then his thoughts turned round on the quick pivot on which they were balanced, and he hurried back to the fight. He travelled at once up to Rome, which he reached on the last of August, and there received a message from Antony demanding his presence in the Senate on the next day. He had been greeted on his journey once again by the enthusiastic welcome of his countrymen, who looked to receive some special advantage from his honesty and patriotism. Once again he was made proud by the clamours of a trusting people. But he had not come to Rome to be Antony's puppet. Antony had some measure to bring before the Senate in honour of Caesar, which it would not suit Cicero to support or to oppose. He sent to say that he was tired after his journey, and would not come. Upon this the critics deal hardly with him and call him a coward. With an incredible pusillanimity, says Monsieur de Rozoire, Cicero excused himself, alleging his health and the fatigue of his voyage. He pretended that he was too tired to be present, says Mr. Long. It appears to me that they who have read Cicero's works with the greatest care have become so enveloped by the power of his words as to expect from them an unnatural weight. If a politician of today, finding that it did not suit him to appear in the House of Commons on a certain evening, and that it would best become him to allow a debate to pass without his presence, were to make such an excuse, would he be treated after the same fashion? Pusillanimity and pretence in regard to those Philippics in which he seems to have courted death by every harsh word that he uttered. The reader, who has begun to think so, must change his mind and be prepared as he progresses to find quite another fault with Cicero. Impetuous, self-confident, rash, throwing down the gauge with internecine fury, striving to crush with his words the man who had the command of the legions of Rome, sticking at nothing which could inflict a blow, forcing men by his descriptions to such contempt of Anthony that they should be induced to leave the stronger party that they too should incur something of the wrath of the orator. That they will find to be the line which Cicero adopted and the demeanour he put on during the next twelve months. He thundered with his Philippics through Rome, addressing now the Senate and now the people, with a hardyhood which you make and am as being unbecoming one so old, who should have been taught equanimity by experience, but Pusillanimity and pretence will not be the offences you will bring against him. Anthony, not finding that Cicero had come at his call, declared in the Senate that he would send his workmen to dig him out from his house. Cicero alludes to this on the next day without passion. Anthony was not present, and in this speech he expresses no bitterness of anger. It should hardly have been named one of the Philippics which title might well have commenced with the second. The name, it should be understood, has been adopted from a jocular allusion by Cicero to the Philippics of Demosthenes made in a letter to Brutus. We have at least the reply of Brutus, if indeed the letter be genuine, which is much to be doubted. But he had no purpose of affixing his name to them. For many years afterwards they were called Antoninai, and the first general use of the term by which we know them has probably been comparatively modern. The one name does as well as another, but it is odd that speeches from Demosthenes should have given a name to others so well known as these made by Cicero against Anthony. Plutarch, however, mentions the name, saying that it had been given to the speeches by Cicero himself. In this, the first, he is ironically reticent as to Anthony's violence and unpatriotic conduct. Anthony was not present, and Cicero tells his hearers with a pleasant joke, that to Anthony it may be allowed to be absent on the score of ill health, although the indulgence had been refused to him. Anthony is his friend, and why had Anthony treated him so roughly? Was it unusual for senators to be absent? Was Hannibal at the gate? Or was they dealing for peace with Pyrrhus, as was the case when they had brought the old blind apius down to the house? Then he comes to the question of the hour, which was nominally the sanctioning as law those acts of caesars which he had decreed by his own will before his death. When a tyrant usurps power for a while, and is then deposed, no more difficult question can be debated. Is it not better to take the law as he leaves it, even though the law has become a law illegally, than encounter all the confusion of retrograde action? Nothing could have been more iniquitous than some of Cicero's laws, but Cicero had opposed their abrogation. But here the question was one not of Caesar's laws, but of decrees subsequently made by Anthony, and palmed off upon the people as having been found among Caesar's papers. Soon after Caesar's death a decision had been obtained by Anthony in favour of Caesar's laws, or acts, and hence had come these impudent forgeries under the guise of which Anthony could cause what writings he chose to be made public. "'I think that Caesar's acts should be maintained,' says Cicero, "'not as being in themselves good. For that no one can assert. I wish that Anthony were present here, without his usual friends,' he adds, alluding to his armed satellites. He would tell us after what manner he would maintain those acts of Caesar's. Are they to be found in notes and scraps and small documents brought forward by one witness, or not brought forward at all but only told to us? And shall those which he engraved in bronze, and which he wished to be known as the will of the people, and as perpetual laws, shall they go for nothing?' Here was the point in dispute. The decree had been voted soon after Caesar's death, giving the sanction of the senate to his laws, for peace this had been done, as the best way out of the difficulty which oppressed the state. But it was intolerable that under this sanction Anthony should have the power of bringing forth new edicts day after day while the very laws which Caesar had passed were not maintained. What better law was there, or more often demanded in the best days of the republic, than that law, passed by Caesar, under which the provinces were to be held by the praetors only for one year, and by the consuls for not more than two. But this law is abolished. So it is thus that Caesar's acts are to be maintained. Anthony no doubt and his friends, having an eye to the fruition of the provinces, had found among Caesar's papers, or said they had found, some writing to suit their purpose. All things to be desired were to be found among Caesar's papers. The banished are brought back from banishment. The right of citizenship is given not only to individuals, but to whole nations and provinces, exceptions from taxations are granted, by the dead man's voice. Anthony had begun probably with some one or two more modest forgeries, and had gone on, strengthened in impudence by his own success, till Caesar dead was like to be worse to them than Caesar living. The whole speech is dignified, patriotic, and bold, asserting with truth that which he believed to be right, but never carried into invective or dealing with expressions of anger. It is very short, but I know no speech of his more closely to its purpose. I can see him now, with his toga round him, as he utters the final words. I have lived perhaps long enough, till that's the length of years and the glory I have won. What little may be added shall be not for myself, but for you and for the Republic. The words thus spoken became absolutely true.