d to bloodshed
and cruelty to animals, as they afterwards became when deprived of
political excitements, and left with nothing violent to amuse them but
the displays of the amphitheatre.

Earlier in this same letter Cicero had told his friend Marius that on
this occasion certain old actors had re-appeared on the stage, who,
as he thought, had left it for good. The only one he mentions is the
great tragic actor Aesopus, who "was in such a state that no one could
say a word against his retiring from the profession." At one important
point his voice failed him. This may conveniently remind us that
Aesopus was the last of the great actors of tragedy, and that his best
days were in the early half of this century--another sign of the decay
of the legitimate drama. He was an intimate friend of Cicero, and from
a few references to him in the Ciceronian writings we can form some
idea of his genius. In one passage Cicero writes of having seen him
looking so wild and gesticulating so excitedly, that he seemed almost
to have lost command of himself.[514] In the description, already
quoted from the speech _pro Sestio_, of the scene in the theatre
before his recall from exile, he speaks of this "summus artifex" as
delivering his allusions to the exile with infinite force and passion.
Yet the later tradition of his acting was rather that he was serious
and self-restrained; Horace calls him _gravis_, and Quintilian too
speaks of his _gravitas_.[515] Probably, like Garrick, he was capable
of a great variety of moods and parts. How carefully he studied the
varieties of gesticulation is indicated by a curious story preserved
by Valerius Maximus, that he and Roscius the great comedian used to
go and sit in the courts in order to observe the action of the orator
Hortensius.[516]

Roscius too was an early intimate friend of Cicero, who, like Caesar,
seems to have valued the friendship of all men of genius, without
regard to their origin or profession. Roscius seems to have been a
freedman;[517] his great days were in Cicero's early life, and he died
in 61 B.C., to the deep grief of all his friends.[518] So wonderfully
finished was his acting that it became a common practice to call any
one a Roscius whose work was more than usually perfect. He never could
find a pupil of whom he could entirely approve; many had good points,
but if there were a single blot, the master could not bear it.[519]
In the _de Oratore_ Cicero tells us several inter