uple, strove to acquire, each for
himself, the power which the weak hands of the Senate were unable to
grasp. However much, or however little, the country of itself might have
been to any of them, it seemed good to him, whether for the country's
sake or for his own, that the rule should be in his own hands. Each had
the opportunity, and each used it, or tried to use it. With Cicero there
is always present the longing to restore the power to the old
constitutional possessors of it. So much is admitted, even by his bitter
enemies; and I am sometimes at a loss whether to wonder most that a man
of letters, dead two thousand years ago, should have enemies so bitter
or a friend so keenly in earnest about him as I am. Cicero was aware
quite as well as any who lived then, if he did not see the matter
clearer even than any others, that there was much that was rotten in the
State. Men who had been murderers on behalf of Marius, and then others
who had murdered on behalf of Sulla--among whom that Catiline, of whom
we have to speak presently, had been one--were not apt to settle
themselves down as quiet citizens. The laws had been set aside. Even the
law courts had been closed. Sulla had been law, and the closets of his
favorites had been the law courts. Senators had been cowed and obedient.
The Tribunes had only been mock Tribunes. Rome, when Cicero began his
public life, was still trembling. The Consuls of the day were men chosen
at Sulla's command. The army was Sulla's army. The courts were now again
opened by Sulla's permission. The day fixed by Sulla when murderers
might no longer murder--or, at any rate, should not be paid for
murdering--had arrived. There was not, one would say, much hope for good
things. But Sulla had reproduced the signs of order, and the best hope
lay in that direction. Consuls, Praetors, Quaestors, AEdiles, even
Tribunes, were still there. Perhaps it might be given to him, to Cicero,
to strengthen the hands of such officers. At any rate, there was no
better course open to him by which he could serve his country.

The heaviest accusation brought against Cicero charges him with being
insincere to the various men with whom he was brought in contact in
carrying out the purpose of his life, and he has also been accused of
having changed his purpose. It has been alleged that, having begun life
as a democrat, he went over to the aristocracy as soon as he had secured
his high office of State. As we go on, it will