ndance. But
the grand fact of a wide-spread conspiracy could go naked in Rome, and
not even a Cicero dare to meddle with it.

[Sidenote: B.C. 63, aetat. 44.]

As to this second conspiracy, the conspiracy with which Sallust and
Cicero have made us so well acquainted, there is no sufficient ground
for asserting that Caesar was concerned in it.[194] That he was greatly
concerned in the treatment of the conspirators there is no doubt. He had
probably learned to appreciate the rage, the madness, the impotence of
Catiline at then propel worth. He too, I think, must have looked upon
Cicero as a meddling, over-virtuous busybody; as did even Pompey when he
returned from the East. What practical use could there be in such a man
at such a time--in one who really believed in honesty, who thought of
liberty and the Republic, and imagined that he could set the world right
by talking? Such must have been the feeling of Caesar, who had both
experience and foresight to tell him that Rome wanted and must have a
master. He probably had patriotism enough to feel that he, if he could
acquire the mastership, would do something beyond robbery--would not
satisfy himself with cutting the throats of all his enemies, and feeding
his supporters with the property of his opponents. But Cicero was
impracticable--unless, indeed, he could be so flattered as to be made
useful. It was thus, I think, that Caesar regarded Cicero, and thus that
he induced Pompey to regard him. But now, in the year of his Consulship,
Cicero had really talked himself into power, and for this year his
virtue must be allowed to have its full way.

He did so much in this year, was so really efficacious in restraining
for a time the greed and violence of the aristocracy, that it is not
surprising that he was taught to believe in himself. There were, too,
enough of others anxious for the Republic to bolster him up in his own
belief. There was that Cornelius in whose defence Cicero made the two
great speeches which have been unfortunately lost, and there was Cato,
and up to this time there was Pompey, as Cicero thought. Cicero, till he
found himself candidate for the Consulship, had contented himself with
undertaking separate cases, in which, no doubt, politics were concerned,
but which were not exclusively political. He had advocated the
employment of Pompey in the East, and had defended Cornelius. He was
well acquainted with the history of the Republic; but he had probably
nev