acco_, Sec. 49, as acting in a judicial capacity, and was perhaps a
cousin of Cicero's.]

[Footnote 184: The class of Romans who have practically become
provincials.]

[Footnote 185: Rome and its society and interests.]

[Footnote 186: Father of Augustus, governor of Macedonia, B.C. 60-59.
But he seems to refer to his praetorship (B.C. 61) at Rome; at any rate,
as well as to his conduct in Macedonia.]

[Footnote 187: Reading _primum_; others _primus_, "his head lictor."]

XXX (A II, 4)

[Sidenote: B.C. 59. Coss., C. Iulius Caesar, M. Calpurnius Bibulus.]

This year was a crucial one in the history of the Republic, and
also of Cicero particularly. It witnessed the working of the
agreement entered into in the previous year between Pompey, Caesar,
and Crassus, to secure their several objects, commonly called the
First Triumvirate. The determined enmity of the consuls to each
other, the high-handed conduct of Caesar in regard to the senate,
his ultimate appointment to the unusual period of five years'
government of the Gauls and Illyricum, were so many blows at the
old constitution; and scarcely less offensive to the Catonian
Optimates were the agrarian laws passed in favour of Pompey's
veterans, the forcing of his _acta_ through the senate, and the
arrangement whereby he too was eventually to have the consulship
again, and an extended period of provincial government. Cicero was
distracted by hesitation. He had pinned his faith on Pompey's
ultimate opposition to Caesar, and yet did not wholly trust him, and
was fully aware of the unpracticable nature of Cato and the
weakness of the Optimates. The triumvirs had an instrument for
rendering him helpless in Clodius, but Cicero could not believe
that they would use it, or that his services to the state could be
so far forgotten as to make danger possible. We shall find him,
then, wholly absorbed in the question as to how far he is to give
into or oppose the triumvirs. It is not till the end of the year
that he begins to see the real danger ahead. We have one extant
oration of this year--_pro Flacco_--which was not much to his
credit, for Flaccus had evidently been guilty of extortion in Asia.
He also defended the equally guilty C. Antonius in a speech which
brought upon him the vengeance of the triumvirs, but it is happily
lo