second of his two Tusculum houses. He makes it the
scene of the "Discussions of Tusculum," one of the last of the treatises
in the writing of which he found consolation for private and public
sorrows. He describes himself as resorting in the afternoon to his
"Academy," and there discussing how the wise man may rise superior to
the fear of death, to pain and to sorrow, how he may rule his passions,
and find contentment in virtue alone. "If it seems," he says, summing up
the first of these discussions, "if it seems the clear bidding of God
that we should quit this life [he seems to be speaking of suicide, which
appeared to a Roman to be, under certain circumstances, a laudable act],
let us obey gladly and thankfully. Let us consider that we are being
loosed from prison, and released from chains, that we may either find
our way back to a home that is at once everlasting and manifestly our
own, or at least be quit forever of all sensation and trouble. If no
such bidding come to us, let us at least cherish such a temper that we
may look on that day so dreadful to others as full of blessing to us;
and let us look on nothing that is ordered for us either by the
everlasting gods or by nature, our common mother, as an evil. It is not
by some random chance that we have been created. There is beyond all
doubt some mighty Power which watches over the race of man, which does
not produce a creature whose doom it is, after having exhausted all
other woes, to fall at last into the unending woe of death. Rather let
us believe that we have in death a haven and refuge prepared for us. I
would that we might sail thither with widespread sails; if not, if
contrary winds shall blow us back, still we must needs reach, though it
may be somewhat late, the haven where we would be. And as for the fate
which is the fate of all, how can it be the unhappiness of one?"

CHAPTER VII.

A GREAT CONSPIRACY.

Sergius Catiline belonged to an ancient family which had fallen into
poverty. In the evil days of Sulla, when the nobles recovered the power
which they had lost, and plundered and murdered their adversaries, he
had shown himself as cruel and as wicked as any of his fellows. Like
many others he had satisfied grudges of his own under pretense of
serving his party, and had actually killed his brother-in-law with his
own hand. These evil deeds and his private character, which was of the
very worst, did not hinder him from rising to high offices