were under new restraints from the aristocracy, arose in a body and
began to break everything that came to hand. "Tum pietate gravem!" The
Consul was sent for. He called on the people to follow him out of the
theatre to the Temple of Bellona, and there addressed to them that
wonderful oration by which they were sent away not only pacified but in
good-humor with Otho himself. "Iste regit dictis animos et pectora
mulcet." I have spoken of Pliny's eulogy as to the great Consul's doings
of the year. The passage is short and I will translate it:[175] "But,
Marcus Tullius, how shall I reconcile it to myself to be silent as to
you, or by what special glory shall I best declare your excellence? How
better than by referring to the grand testimony given to you by the
whole nation, and to the achievements of your Consulship as a specimen
of your entire life? At your voice the tribes gave up their agrarian
law, which was as the very bread in their mouths. At your persuasion
they pardoned Otho his law and bore with good-humor the difference of
the seats assigned to them. At your prayer the children of the
proscribed forbore from demanding their rights of citizenship. Catiline
was put to flight by your skill and eloquence. It was you who
silenced[176] M. Antony. Hail, thou who wert first addressed as the
father of your country--the first who, in the garb of peace, hast
deserved a triumph and won the laurel wreath of eloquence." This was
grand praise to be spoken of a man more than a hundred years after his
death, by one who had no peculiar sympathies with him other than those
created by literary affinity.

None of Cicero's letters have come to us from the year of his
Consulship.

CHAPTER IX

_CATILINE._

To wash the blackamoor white has been the favorite task of some modern
historians. To find a paradox in character is a relief to the
investigating mind which does not care to walk always in the well-tried
paths, or to follow the grooves made plain and uninteresting by earlier
writers. Tiberius and even Nero have been praised. The memories of our
early years have been shocked by instructions to regard Richard III. and
Henry VIII. as great and scrupulous kings. The devil may have been
painted blacker than he should be, and the minds of just men, who will
not accept the verdict of the majority, have been much exercised to put
the matter right. We are now told that Catiline was a popular hero;
that, though he might have wish