as so changed
during the last two thousand years, that men, hindered by their sense of
what is at present odious, refuse to throw themselves back into the
condition of things a knowledge of which can have come to them only from
books. They measure events individually by the present scale, and refuse
to see that Brutus should be judged by us now in reference to the
judgment that was formed of it then. In an age in which it was
considered wise and fitting to destroy the nobles of a barbarous
community which had defended itself, and to sell all others as slaves,
so that the perpetrator simply recorded the act he had done as though
necessary, can it have been a base thing to kill a tyrant? Was it
considered base by other Romans of the day? Was that plea ever made even
by Caesar's friends, or was it not acknowledged by them all that "Brutus
was an honorable man," even when they had collected themselves
sufficiently to look upon him as an enemy? It appears abundantly in
Cicero's letters that no one dreamed of regarding them as we regard
assassins now, or spoke of Caesar's death as we look upon assassination.
"Shall we defend the deeds of him at whose death we are rejoiced?" he
says: and again, he deplores the feeling of regret which was growing in
Rome on account of Caesar's death, "lest it should be dangerous to those
who have slain the tyrant for us."[172] We find that Quintilian, among
his stock lessons in oratory, constantly refers to the old established
rule that a man did a good deed who had killed a tyrant--a lesson which
he had taken from the Greek teachers.[173] We are, therefore, bound to
accept this murder as a thing praiseworthy according to the light of the
age in which it was done, and to recognize the fact that it was so
regarded by the men of the day.

We are told now that Cicero "hated" Caesar. There was no such hatred as
the word implies. And we are told of "assassins," with an intention to
bring down on the perpetrators of the deed the odium they would have
deserved had the deed been done to-day; but the word has, I think, been
misused. A king was abominable to Roman ears, and was especially
distasteful to men like Cicero, Brutus, and the other "optimates" who
claimed to be peers. To be "primus inter pares" had been Cicero's
ambition--to be the leading oligarch of the day. Caesar had gradually
mounted higher and still higher, but always leaving some
hope--infinitesimally small at last--that he might be indu