ced to submit
himself to the Republic. Sulla had submitted. Personally there was no
hatred; but that hope had almost vanished, and therefore, judging as a
Roman, when the deed was done, Cicero believed it to have been a
glorious deed. There can be no doubt on that subject. The passages in
which he praises it are too numerous for direct quotation; but there
they are, interspersed through the letters and the Philippics. There was
no doubt of his approval. The "assassination" of Caesar, if that is to be
the word used, was to his idea a glorious act done on behalf of
humanity. The all-powerful tyrant who had usurped dominion over his
country had been made away with, and again they might fall back upon the
law. He had filched the army. He had run through various provinces, and
had enriched himself with their wealth. He was above all law; he was
worse than a Marius or a Sulla, who confessed themselves, by their open
violence, to be temporary evils. Caesar was creating himself king for all
time. No law had established him. No plebiscite of the nation had
endowed him with kingly power. With his life in his hands, he had dared
to do it, and was almost successful. It is of no purpose to say that he
was right and Cicero was wrong in their views as to the government of so
mean a people as the Romans had become. Cicero's form of government,
under men who were not Ciceros, had been wrong, and had led to a state
of things in which a tyrant might for the time be the lesser evil; but
not on that account was Cicero wrong to applaud the deed which removed
Caesar. Middleton in his life (vol. ii, p. 435) gives us the opinion of
Suetonius on this subject, and tells us that the best and wisest men in
Rome supposed Caesar to have been justly killed. Mr. Forsyth generously
abstains from blaming the deed, as to which he leaves his readers to
form their own opinion. Abeken expresses no opinion concerning its
morality, nor does Morabin. It is the critics of Cicero's works who have
condemned him without thinking much, perhaps, of the judgment they have
given.

But Cicero was not in the conspiracy, nor had he even contemplated
Caesar's death. Assertions to the contrary have been made both lately and
in former years, but without foundation. I have already alluded to some
of these, and have shown that phrases in his letters have been
misinterpreted. A passage was quoted by M. Du Rozoir--Ad Att., lib. x.,
8--"I don't think that he can endure longer tha