which one of her sons by her first husband afterwards wrote of his step-father.  “She wounded herself in the thigh with a knife such as barbers use for cutting the nails.  The wound was deep, the loss of blood great, and the pain and fever that followed acute.  Her husband was in the greatest distress, when his wife thus addressed him:  ’Brutus, it was a daughter of Cato who became your wife, not merely to share your bed and board, but to be the partner of your adversity and your prosperity. You give me no cause to complain, but what proof can I give you of my affection if I may not bear with you your secret troubles.  Women, I know, are weak creatures, ill fitted to keep secrets.  Yet a good training and honest company may do much, and this, as Cato’s daughter and wife to Brutus, I have had.’  She then showed him the wound, and told him that she had inflicted it upon herself to prove her courage and constancy.”  For all this resolution she had something of a woman’s weakness.  When her husband had left the house on the day fixed for the assassination, she could not conceal her agitation.  She eagerly inquired of all who entered how Brutus fared, and at last fainted in the hall of her house.  In the midst of the business of the senate-house Brutus heard that his wife was dying.

Porcia was not with her husband during the campaigns that ended at Philippi, but remained in Rome.  She is said to have killed herself by swallowing the live coals from a brazier, when her friends kept from her all the means of self-destruction.  This story is scarcely credible; possibly it means that she suffocated herself with the fumes of charcoal.  That she should commit suicide suited all the traditions of her life.

CHAPTER XIII.

A GOVERNOR IN HIS PROVINCE.

It was usual for a Roman statesman, after filling the office of praetor or consul, to undertake for a year or more the government of one of the provinces.  These appointments were indeed the prizes of the profession of politics.  The new governor had a magnificent outfit from the treasury.  We hear of as much as one hundred and fifty thousand pounds having been allowed for this purpose.  Out of this something might easily be economized.  Indeed we hear of one governor who left the whole of his allowance put out at interest in Rome.  And in the province itself splendid gains might be, and indeed commonly were, got.  Even Cicero, who, if we may trust his own account of his proceedings, was exceptionally just, and not only just, but even generous in his dealings with the provincials, made, as we have seen, the very handsome profit of twenty thousand pounds out of a year of office.  Verres, who, on the other hand, was exceptionally rapacious, made three hundred and fifty thousand pounds in three years, besides collecting works of art of incalculable value.  But the honors and profits to which most of his contemporaries looked forward with eagerness did not attract Cicero.  He did not care to be absent from the center of political life, and felt himself to be at once superior to and unfitted for the pettier affairs of a provincial government.