e than a very cautious and general judgment upon
them. We want all the "state papers" and political correspondence of
the day--not Cicero's letters only, but those of Caesar and Pompey and
Lentulus, and much information besides that was never trusted to pen or
paper--in order to lay down with any accuracy the course which a really
unselfish patriot could have taken. But there seems little reason to
accuse Cicero of double-dealing or trimming in the worst sense. His policy
was unquestionably, from first to last, a policy of expedients. But
expediency is, and must be more or less, the watchword of a statesman. If
he would practically serve his country, he must do to some extent what
Cicero professed to do--make friends with those in power. "_Sic
vivitur_"--"So goes the world;" "_Tempori serviendum est_"--"We
must bend to circumstances"--these are not the noblest mottoes, but they
are acted upon continually by the most respectable men in public and
private life, who do not open their hearts to their friends so
unreservedly as Cicero does to his friend Atticus. It seemed to him a
choice between Pompey and Caesar; and he probably hoped to be able so far
to influence the former, as to preserve some shadow of a constitution for
Rome. What he saw in those "dregs of a Republic",[1] as he himself calls
it, that was worth preserving;--how any honest despotism could seem to
him more to be dreaded than that prostituted liberty,--this is harder to
comprehend. The remark of Abeken seems to go very near the truth--"His
devotion to the commonwealth was grounded not so much upon his conviction
of its actual merits, as of its fitness for the display of his own
abilities".

[Footnote 1: "Faex Romuli".]

But that commonwealth was past saving even in name. Within two months of
his having been declared a public enemy, all Italy was at Caesar's feet.
Before another year was past, the battle of Pharsalia had been fought, and
the great Pompey lay a headless corpse on the sea-shore in Egypt. It was
suggested to Cicero, who had hitherto remained constant to the fortunes of
his party, and was then in their camp at Dyrrachium, that he should take
the chief command, but he had the sense to decline; and though men called
him "traitor", and drew their swords upon him, he withdrew from a cause
which he saw was lost, and returned to Italy, though not to Rome.

The meeting between him and Caesar, which came at last, set at rest any
personal apprehension