'which has not been the case for some time past.' No doubt this recovered sense of self-respect helped Cicero to form his final resolution to join Pompey. But it was not in his nature to be blind to every possible difficulty. Though Cæsar stayed but a few days in Rome, and went off to Spain. with his main forces, Italy was in left in charge of Antony, and officers were watching the coasts and harbours to prevent the exit of senators and others wishing to join Pompey. Cicero still clung to his imperium and lictors, which made it impossible to travel across country unobserved. But the news of the resistance of Marseilles, and later on of Cæsar's difficulties in Spain, convinced him that for the sake of his own reputation he must make an effort to reach Pompey. If Cæsar succeeded in Spain, Italy would very likely be no safe place for him; and if he failed-as seemed not improbable-his continuance in Italy would ruin his position with the Pompeians, who would then be in the ascendant. Interest, therefore, now coincided with conviction of duty. Still, it was not till June 7 that he finally set sail, going, it seems, first to the villa of Atticus at Buthrotum, and thence to Pompey's headquarters near Dyrrhachium.

Cicero had at last done what his conscience told him was right, though, like most mortals, from mixed motives. He was not rewarded by personal happiness or recovered political importance. It was, in fact, the end of his political career until the last outbreak of feverish energy in the autumn of 44 B.C. He was neither satisfied himself nor useful to others in Pompey's camp. The military situation, though bad, did not distress him so much as the fresh evidence that the Pompeians were looking forward to an era of massacre and confiscation. This kind of talk, which had disgusted him at the beginning of the war, seemed more intolerable now. Moreover, Pompey offered him no post of importance, though he borrowed the savings of his provincial government. He was mortified and disappointed, and revenged himself by sarcasms and angry epigrams, which did not make his presence any more welcome to those in power. Finally his health broke down, and when in the summer of 48 B.C. Pompey made his fatal error of quitting the sea and his fleet and marching into Thessaly, Cicero was left behind at Dyrrhachium. The news of Caesar's victory in Pharsalia determined him to abandon the war, in spite of the threats of the younger Pompey. He made his way to Corcyra and thence to Patræ. His unhappiness was completed by a quarrel with his brother Quintus and his nephew, who

reproached him with having induced them to join the losing side, and hurried off to make their submission to Cæsar, and, as Cicero feared, to denounce him. Before long Dolabella obtained leave from Cæsar for Cicero to return to Italy, and he reached Brundisium in November. But he did not venture farther, and for ten unhappy months he remained there in discomfort and sometimes in danger from Cæsarian troops. This episode in his life, fully illustrated in his correspondence with Atticus, was ended by the return of Cæsar in September 47 B.C., who met him with great kindness and courtesy, and invited him to come back to Rome.

This time Cicero was only too happy to be allowed to do

It was no longer a favour to Cæsar, but an indulgence from him. But he made no attempt to regain a position of political importance. For a time he appears to have been actively engaged in legal business; but he went as seldom as he dared to the Senate, and soon retired more and more completely even from the forum. In March 45 B.C., when he had been back some eighteen months, he writes to Atticus, who had urged him to take up public life again after the loss of his daughter: What have I to do with the 'forum, when law-courts and senate-house are nullities, and where men are always obtruding themselves on my 'sight whom I have not the patience to see?'* This is to his mind the upshot of two years of Cæsarism. For his personal safety he had no cause for fear. Cæsar had broken the Pompeian opposition at Thapsus and Munda, and though ashamed and grieved at the fact that the defeats of his own party should contribute to his personal safety, Cicero could not but acknowledge that Cæsar's moderation in victory was far superior to anything that was to be expected from the Pompeians. Still the régime was hateful to him. The constitution, he thinks, was destroyed. He had himself no place in political life, and was ashamed of having survived the republic. Cæsar had shown him personal kindness, but yet was under such obligations to those who helped him to victory that no one could reckon on the continuance of his moderation. Even if it did continue, it was a matter of favour, and he was ashamed of being a slave.'

From October B.C. 47 to March B.c. 44, though Cicero was living in ease and safety, was a period of political eclipse. It was a period, too, of much personal unhappiness. The divorce from Terentia, his second unsuitable marriage ended

* Ad Att. xii. 21.

also by divorce, the uneasy terms on which he was with his brother and nephew, and finally the loss of his beloved daughter, all contributed to sadden him and shake his hold upon life. Yet at times he found relief in social gaiety, and through everything his literary industry-an industry which seemed only intensified by every fresh sorrow-distracted his thoughts and kept him almost cheerful. But in public life he met with nothing but mortifications. Our editors, in the introduction to their fifth volume-much of which had already appeared elsewhere-have laboured to show that Cicero had a good case against Cæsar. He no doubt believed himself to have one. What is somewhat repellent to us is that his public utterances are so widely at variance with the private opinions expressed in the letters. In the three speeches of this period his language to Cæsar, though not fulsome, is distinctly complimentary; and he also wrote to him in terms which Cæsar's own agents at times thought too strong, and which he privately explained to be mere KONAKɛía. Even to Atticus, to whom he generally reveals everything, he seems at times to try to soften what he had said to Cæsar. Notwithstanding such utterances, he disliked everything Cæsar did-his retention of the dictatorship, his practical abolition of freedom of election, his lowering of the authority of the Senate. In regard to this last our editors quote with approbation the dictum of Mr. Strachan-Davidson that to appeal directly to the people 'against the opinion of the Senate was at Rome precisely 'what appealing to the personal wishes of the sovereign 'against the policy adopted by Parliament would be in 'England.' There is a certain speciousness in this comparison; but in point of fact the two cases are incommensurable. Neither limb of the comparison really holds good. The sovereign's private wishes do not resemble a popular vote, and the Senate was not a representative body. Again, the original theory of an English sovereign was that he was the creature and representative of the people, liable in certain circumstances to be deposed, whereas the populus Romanus was the only original source of power and ultimate court of appeal. It alone could order;' the Senate could only consult and advise. It is true that little by little the Senate had assumed all kinds of executive powers, but there had been a series of protests made, and on the whole the theory that the ultimate source was the people had never been allowed to die out. Appeals to the comitia against the opinion of the Senate were supported

by numerous precedents. They were sometimes the only possible solution of a difficulty. The supremacy of the comitia had been the object of constant struggles. The need of a previous sanction of the Senate for fresh legislation, which had been gradually asserted, had been expressly abolished by law. The right of a tribune to veto a senatusconsultum put a practical limit to the effective powers of the Senate, and often made such an appeal necessary. It is true that longstanding convention had put into the hands of the Senate much that Cæsar brought before the comitia. Cicero attacks the policy of those who do everything by the people, nothing by the Senate.' But it was bad policy, not absolute revolution. It was well understood that a lex could override a senatus-consultum, and though Cæsar in B.C. 59 and onward made these appeals with increasing frequency, he was not the first or the only one to do so. Pompey himself-though using the most respectful language to the Senate-used the comitia when it suited his purpose without scruple. Cicero's discontent with the new régime was not founded solely or mainly on this practice, to which he must have been well accustomed, but on the various details of Cæsar's administration, which left the comitia only a nominal freedom, while it transferred the management of the provinces from the Senate, not to the comitia, but to himself. This was especially the case in regard to the selection of governors. The method of sortitio had indeed been open to much abuse. Cicero hints that, as consul, he had manipulated it so as to give Quintus Metellus the province of Gaul, and there is abundant evidence that this was frequently done. Cæsar simply neglected it by nominating governors, sometimes for several years in advance, just as he designated consuls up to B.C. 42. These appointments appear to have been confirmed by a lex, but the passing of such a measure was a matter of course; enough veterans-whose interests depended on Cæsar's favour-could always be found to secure that. Again, the dictatorship made all other magistrates unimportant, and there were already proposals afloat for changing that titlewhich after all was known to the constitution-to that of rex, against which all Roman history was a protest. The scene at the Lupercalia-especially offensive because the Lupercalia was a Cæsarian revival-was connected with a report that had been industriously spread abroad that a

*

*Ad Fam. v. 2.

Sibylline verse declared that the Parthians could only be conquered by a Roman king. It was, therefore, something much more revolutionary than a use of the comitia against the Senate with which Cicero charged Cæsar. It was the practical nullifying of Senate and comitia alike. Other minor details intensified the feeling. The proposed enlargement of the city, for which a Greek surveyor had been selected; the placing of Cæsar's statue in the temple of Quirinus, and carrying his image among those of the gods in the opening procession in the Circus; the contemptuous treatment of the consulship implied by nominating Caninius Rebilus for half a day; and the recall of men who had been legally condemned for various state crimes-all these seemed to Cicero to constitute an abolition of the old order

*

of things. Telling Manius Curius about the half-day consulship of Rebilus in terms of bitter jest, he adds, 'You could scarcely believe how disgraceful my conduct appears to me in countenancing the present state of 'things.'

Thus Cicero was prepared to welcome the crime of the Ides of March as the just punishment of a tyrant, and as ushering in the dawn of freedom for the State. But the assassination of Cæsar was ineffective, as political assassinations generally are. His policy survived in weaker and worse hands. The letters from this point are nearly continuous and form a document of almost unequalled interest. gradual disillusion that comes to Cicero, as he finds that the assassins, instead of being regarded as popular heroes, are unable even to enter Rome with safety; the gradual developement of the plans of Marcus Antonius; the arrival on the scene of Octavian and his coquetting with the Optimates against Antony; the debates and conferences as to the next steps to be taken by Brutus and Cassius; the firm stand of Decimus Brutus in his province; the arming of Antony and his final breach with the Senate-all these things pass before our eyes as we read the correspondence following the death of Cæsar. There, too, we find Cicero himself again passing through every phase of doubt and hesitation, wavering between his plan of retiring to Greece till a new consulship should bring the promise of a better policy, and a nervous fear lest, if some great blow were meanwhile struck for the recovery of the constitution, he should not be there to take his share in the glory.

*Ad Fam. vii. 30.