ree, if at all, to
the period in which they were written. I will therefore endeavor to
introduce the orations and letters as the periods may suit, and to treat
of his essays afterward by themselves.

A few words I must say as to the Roman names I have used in my
narrative. There is a difficulty in this respect, because the practice
of my boyhood has partially changed itself. Pompey used to be Pompey
without a blush. Now with an erudite English writer he is generally
Pompeius. The denizens of Africa--the "nigger" world--have had, I think,
something to do with this. But with no erudite English writer is Terence
Terentius, or Virgil Virgilius, or Horace Horatius. Were I to speak of
Livius, the erudite English listener would think that I alluded to an
old author long prior to our dear historian. And though we now talk of
Sulla instead of Sylla, we hardly venture on Antonius instead of Antony.
Considering all this, I have thought it better to cling to the sounds
which have ever been familiar to myself; and as I talk of Virgil and of
Horace and Ovid freely and without fear, so shall I speak also of Pompey
and of Antony and of Catiline. In regard to Sulla, the change has been
so complete that I must allow the old name to have re-established itself
altogether.

It has been customary to notify the division of years in the period of
which I am about to write by dating from two different eras, counting
down from the building of Rome, A.U.C., or "anno urbis conditae," and
back from the birth of Christ, which we English mark by the letters
B.C., before Christ. In dealing with Cicero, writers (both French and
English) have not uncommonly added a third mode of dating, assigning his
doings or sayings to the year of his age. There is again a fourth mode,
common among the Romans, of indicating the special years by naming the
Consuls, or one of them. "O nata mecum consule Manlio," Horace says,
when addressing his cask of wine. That was, indeed, the official mode of
indicating a date, and may probably be taken as showing how strong the
impression in the Roman mind was of the succession of their Consuls. In
the following pages I will use generally the date B.C., which, though
perhaps less simple than the A.U.C., gives to the mind of the modern
reader a clearer idea of the juxtaposition of events. The reader will
surely know that Christ was born in the reign of Augustus, and crucified
in that of Tiberius; but he will not perhaps know, witho