t any rate true.

A man desirous of rising in the service of his country of course adheres
to his party. That Cicero was wrong in supposing that the Republic,
which had in fact already fallen, could be re-established by the
strength of any one man, could be bolstered up by any leader, has to be
admitted; that in trusting to Pompey as a politician he leaned on a
frail reed I admit; but I will not admit that in praising the man he was
hypocritical or unduly self-seeking. In our own political contests, when
a subordinate member of the Cabinet is zealously serviceable to his
chief, we do not accuse him of falsehood because by that zeal he has
also strengthened his own hands. How shall a patriot do the work of his
country unless he be in high place? and how shall he achieve that place
except by co-operation with those whom he trusts? They who have blamed
Cicero for speaking on behalf of Pompey on this occasion, seem to me to
ignore not only the necessities but the very virtues of political life.

One other remarkable oration Cicero made during his Praetorship--that,
namely, in defence of Aulus Cluentius Habitus. As it is the longest, so
is it the most intricate, and on account of various legal points the
most difficult to follow of all his speeches. But there are none perhaps
which tell us more of the condition, or perhaps I should say the
possibilities, of life among the Romans of that day. The accusation
against Roscius Amerinus was accompanied by horrible circumstances. The
iniquities of Verres, as a public officer who had the power of blessing
or of cursing a whole people, were very terrible; but they do not shock
so much as the story here told of private life. That any man should have
lived as did Oppianicus, or any woman as did Sassia, seems to prove a
state of things worse than anything described by Juvenal a hundred and
fifty years later. Cicero was no doubt unscrupulous as an advocate, but
he could have gained nothing here by departing from verisimilitude. We
must take the picture as given us as true, and acknowledge that, though
law processes were common, crimes such as those of this man and of this
woman were not only possible, but might be perpetrated with impunity.
The story is too long and complicated to be even abridged; but it should
be read by those who wish to know the condition of life in Italy during
the latter days of the Republic.

[Sidenote: B.C. 65, aetat. 42.]

In the year after he was Praetor--in