at it
be not at the expense of anybody.

* * * * *

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

The Letters of Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on January 3, 106 B.C. Educated
under the best teachers in the Greek culture of the day, he
won a speedy reputation at the Bar and developed a keen
interest in the various schools of Greek philosophy. His able
and intrepid exposure of Catiline's conspiracy brought him the
highest popularity, but he was attacked, in turn, by the
ignoble Clodius, who obtained his banishment in 58 B.C. In the
ensuing conflict between Caesar and Pompey, Cicero was attached
to the party of Pompey and the senate, as against Caesar and
the people. He kept clear of the conspiracy against Caesar's
life, but after the assassination he undertook an oratorical
campaign against Antony, and was entrusted with the government
of the city. But on the return of the triumvirate, Octavianus,
Antony, and Lepidus, Cicero's name was included in the list of
those who were to be done away, and he was murdered in the
year 43 B.C., at 63 years of age. The correspondence of the
great Roman advocate, statesman, and man of letters, preserved
for us by the care of his freedman Tiro, is the richest and
most interesting collection of its kind in the world's
archives. The many-sided personality of their writer, his
literary charm, the frankness with which he set down his
opinions, hopes, and anxieties, the profound historical
interest of this period of the fall of the republic, and the
intimate glimpses which we get of Roman life and manners,
combine to make Cicero's "Letters" perennially attractive. The
series begins in B.C. 68, when Cicero was 38 years of age, and
runs on to within a short time of his death in B.C. 43. The
letters, of which there are 800, are addressed to several
correspondents, of whom the most frequent and important is
Titus Pomponius, surnamed Atticus, whose sister had married
Cicero's brother Quintus. Atticus was a wealthy and cultivated
man who had lived many years in Athens. He took no side in the
perilous politics of the time, but Cicero relied always on his
affectionate counsel, and on his ever-ready service in
domestic matters.

_To Atticus_

There is nothing I need so much just now as some