as the gravest
suspicion that many of them were forged. But for a time they were a very
powerful machinery for effecting his purpose.

Then came a check. Caesar's nephew and heir, Octavius, arrived at Rome.
Born in the year of Cicero's consulship, he was little more than
nineteen; but in prudence, statecraft, and knowledge of the world he was
fully grown. In his twelfth year he had delivered the funeral oration
over his grandmother Julia. After winning some distinction as a soldier
in Spain, he had returned at his uncle's bidding to Apollonia, a town of
the eastern coast of the Adriatic, where he studied letters and
philosophy under Greek teachers. Here he had received the title of
"Master of the Horse," an honor which gave him the rank next to the
Dictator himself. He came to Rome with the purpose, as he declared, of
claiming his inheritance and avenging his uncle's death. But he knew how
to abide his time. He kept on terms with Antony, who had usurped his
position and appropriated his inheritance, and he was friendly, if not
with the actual murderers of Caesar, yet certainly with Cicero, who made
no secret of having approved their deed.

For Cicero also had now returned to public life. For some time past,
both before Caesar's death and after it, he had devoted himself to
literature.[12] Now there seemed to him a chance that something might yet
be done for the republic, and he returned to Rome, which he reached on
the last day of August. The next day there was a meeting of the Senate,
at which Antony was to propose certain honors to Caesar. Cicero,
wearied, or affecting to be wearied, by his journey, was absent, and was
fiercely attacked by Antony, who threatened to send workmen to dig him
out of his house.

[Footnote 12: To the years 46-44 belong nearly all his treatises on
rhetoric and philosophy.]

The next day Cicero was in his place, Antony being absent, and made a
dignified defense of his conduct, and criticised with some severity the
proceedings of his assailant. Still so far there was no irreconcilable
breach between the two men. "Change your course," says the orator, "I
beseech you: think of those who have gone before, and so steer the
course of the Commonwealth that your countrymen may rejoice that you
were born. Without this no man can be happy or famous." He still
believed, or professed to believe, that Antony was capable of
patriotism. If he had any hopes of peace, these were soon to be crushed.
After