[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.
THE CONDITION OF ROME.
It is far from my intention to write a history of
Rome during the Ciceronian period. Were I to
attempt such a work, I should have to include the
doings of Sertorius in Spain, of Lucullus and Pompey
in the East, Caesar’s ten years in Gaul, and
the civil wars from the taking of Marseilles to the
final battles of Thapsus and Munda. With very
many of the great events which the period includes
Cicero took but slight concern—so slight
that we can hardly fail to be astonished when we find
how little he had to say of them—he who
ran through all the offices of the State, who was
the chosen guardian of certain allied cities, who
has left to us so large a mass of correspondence on
public subjects, and who was essentially a public man
for thirty-four years. But he was a public man
who concerned himself personally with Rome rather
than with the Roman Empire. Home affairs, and
not foreign affairs, were dear to him. To Caesar’s
great deeds in Gaul we should have had from him almost
no allusion, had not his brother Quintus been among
Caesar’s officers, and his young friend Trebatius
been confided by himself to Caesar’s care.
Of Pharsalia we only learn from him that, in utter
despair of heart, he allowed himself to be carried
to the war. Of the proconsular governments throughout
the Roman Empire we should not learn much from Cicero,
were it not that it has been shown to us by the trial
of Verres how atrocious might be the conduct of a
Roman Governor, and by the narratives of Cicero’s
own rule in Cilicia, how excellent. The history
of the time has been written for modern readers by
Merivale and Mommsen, with great research and truth
as to facts, but, as I think with some strong feeling.
Now Mr. Froude has followed with his Caesar, which
might well have been called Anti-Cicero. All
these in lauding, and the two latter in deifying,
the successful soldier, have, I think, dealt hardly
with Cicero, attributing to his utterances more than
they mean; doubting his sincerity, but seeing clearly
the failure of his political efforts. With the
great facts of the Roman Empire as they gradually formed
