laud those who had destroyed Caesar, at the same time they
praise his deeds."[181] In the same letter he tells Atticus that the
people in all the villages are full of joy. "It cannot be told how eager
they are--how they run out to meet me, and to hear my accounts of what
was done. But the Senate passes no decree!"[182] He speaks of going into
Greece to see his son--whom he never lived to see again--telling him of
letters from the lad from Athens, which, he thinks, however, may be
hypocritical, though he is comforted by finding their language to be
clear. He has recovered his good-humor, and can be jocose. One Cluvius
has left him a property at Puteoli, and the house has tumbled down; but
he has sent for Chrysippus, an architect. But what are houses falling to
him? He can thank Socrates and all his followers that they have taught
him to disregard such worldly things. Nevertheless, he has deemed it
expedient to take the advice of a certain friend as to turning the
tumble-down house into profitable shape.[183] A little later he
expresses his great disgust that Caesar, in the public speeches in Rome,
should be spoken of as that "great and most excellent man."[184] And yet
he had said, but a few months since, in his oration for King Deiotarus,
in the presence of Caesar, "that he looked only into his eyes, only into
his face--that he regarded only him." The flattery and the indignant
reprobation do, in truth, come very near upon each other, and induce us
to ask whether the fact of having to live in the presence of royalty be
not injurious to the moral man. Could any of us have refused to speak to
Caesar with adulation--any of us whom circumstances compelled to speak to
him? Power had made Caesar desirous of a mode of address hardly becoming
a man to give or a man to receive. Does not the etiquette of to-day
require from us certain courtesies of conversation, which I would call
abject were it not that etiquette requires them? Nevertheless, making
the best allowance that I can for Cicero, the difference of his language
within a month or two is very painful. In the letter above quoted
Octavius comes to him, and we can see how willing was the young aspirant
to flatter him.

He sees already that, in spite of the promised amnesty, there must be
internecine feud. "I shall have to go into the camp with young
Sextus"--Sextus Pompeius--"or perhaps with Brutus, a prospect at my
years most odious." Then he quotes two lines of Homer, alter