ived"--"vixerunt"--his own
power was sufficient to insure the people that they would be safe in
praising him. When he came back to Rome, Pompey had been urgent for his
return, and Caesar had acceded to it. When the bill was passed for
banishing him, the Triumvirate had been against him, and Clodius had
been able to hound on his crew. But Milo also had a crew, and Milo was
Cicero's friend. As the Clodian crew helped to drive Cicero from Rome,
so did Milo's crew help to bring him back again.

Cicero, on reaching Rome, went at once to the Capitol, to the temple of
Jupiter, and there returned thanks for the great thing that had been
done for him. He was accompanied by a vast procession who from the
temple went with him to his brother's house, where he met his wife, and
where he resided for a time. His own house in the close neighborhood had
been destroyed. He reached Rome on the 4th of September, and on the 5th
an opportunity was given to the then hero of the day for expressing his
thanks to the Senate for what they had done for him. His intellect had
not grown rusty in Macedonia, though he had been idle. On the 5th,
Cicero spoke to the Senate; on the 6th, to the people. Before the end
of the month he made a much longer speech to the priests in defence of
his own property. Out of the full heart the mouth speaks, and his heart
was very full of the subject.

His first object was to thank the Senate and the leading members of it
for their goodness to him. The glowing language in which this is done
goes against the grain with us when we read continuously the events of
his life as told by himself. His last grievous words had been
expressions of despair addressed to Atticus; now he breaks out into a
paean of triumph. We have to remember that eight months had intervened,
and that the time had sufficed to turn darkness into light. "If I cannot
thank you as I ought, O Conscript Fathers, for the undying favors which
you have conferred on me, on my brother, and my children, ascribe it, I
beseech you, to the greatness of the things you have done for me, and
not to the defect of my virtue." Then he praises the two Consuls, naming
them, Lentulus and Metellus--Metellus, as the reader will remember,
having till lately been his enemy. He lauds the Praetors and the
Tribunes, two of the latter members having opposed his return; but he is
loudest in praise of Pompey--that "Sampsiceramus," that
"Hierosolymarius," that "Arabarches" into whose c