edy for his present domestic sorrow in any of those general moral
reflections which philosophy, Christian as well as pagan, is so ready
to produce upon such occasions; which are all so undeniable, and all so
utterly unendurable to the mourner.

Cicero found his consolation, or that diversion of thought which so
mercifully serves the purpose of consolation, where most men of active
minds like his seek for it and find it--in hard work. The literary effort
of writing and completing the works which have been just mentioned
probably did more to soothe his mind than all the arguments which they
contained. He resumed his practice as an advocate so far as to plead a
cause before Caesar, now ruling as Dictator at Rome--the last cause, as
events happened, that he was ever to plead. It was a cause of no great
importance--a defence of Deiotarus, titulary king of Armenia, who was
accused of having entertained designs against the life of Caesar while
entertaining him as a guest in his palace. The Dictator reserved his
judgment until he should have made his campaign against the Parthians.
That more convenient season never came: for before the spring campaign
could open, the fatal "Ides of March" cut short Caesar's triumphs and
his life.

CHAPTER VI.

CICERO AND ANTONY.

It remained for Cicero yet to take a part in one more great national
struggle--the last for Rome and for himself. No doubt there was some
grandeur in the cause which he once more so vigorously espoused--the
recovery of the liberties of Rome. But all the thunders of Cicero's
eloquence, and all the admiration of modern historians and poets, fail
to enlist our hearty sympathies with the assassins of Caesar. That
"consecration of the dagger" to the cause of liberty has been the fruitful
parent of too much evil ever since to make its use anything but hateful.
That Cicero was among the actual conspirators is probably not true, though
his enemies strongly asserted it. But at least he gloried in the deed when
done, and was eager to claim all the honours of a tyrannicide. Nay, he
went farther than the actual conspirators, in words at least; it is
curious to find him so careful to disclaim complicity in the act. "Would
that you had invited me to that banquet on the Ides of March! there would
then have been no leavings from the feast",--he writes to Cassius. He
would have had their daggers turned on Antony, at all events, as well as
on Caesar. He wishes that "the gods