command of an army. In fact, both these generals wished him
out of the way, although they equally admired and feared him; for each
of them was bent on being the supreme ruler of Rome.

So it was permitted for the most illustrious patriot which Rome then
held to go into exile. What a comment on the demoralization of the
times! Here was the best, the most gifted, and the most accomplished man
of the Republic,--a man who had rendered invaluable and acknowledged
services, that man of consular dignity and one of the leaders of the
Senate,--sent into inglorious banishment, on a mere technicality and for
an act which saved the State. And the "magnanimous" Caesar and the
"illustrious" Pompey allowed him to go! Where was salvation to a
Republic which banished its savior, and for having saved it? The heart
sickens over such a fact, although it occurred two thousand years ago.
When the citizens of Rome saw that great man depart mournfully from
among them, and to all appearance forever, for having rescued them from
violence and slaughter, and by their own act,--they ought to have known
that the days of the Republic were numbered. But this only a few
far-seeing patriots felt. And not only was Cicero banished, but his
palace was burned and his villas confiscated. He was not only disgraced,
but ruined; he was an exile and a pauper. What a fall! What an unmerited
treatment!

Very few people conceive what a dreadful punishment it was in Greece and
Rome to be banished; or, as the formula went, "to be interdicted from
fire and water,"--the sacred fire of the hearth, the lustral water which
served for sacrifices. The exile was deprived of these by being forced
to extinguish the hearth-fire,--the elemental, fundamental religion of a
Greek and Roman. "He could not, deprived of this, hold property; having
no longer a worship, he had no longer a family. He ceased to be a
husband and father; his sons were no longer in his power, his wife was
no longer his wife, and when he died he had not the right to be buried
in the tombs of his ancestors." [4]

[Footnote 4: Coulanges: Ancient City.]

Is it to be wondered at that even so good and great a man as Cicero
should bitterly feel his disgrace and misfortunes? Is it surprising
that, philosopher as he was, he should have given way to grief and
despondency. He would have been more than human not to have lost his
spirits and his hopes. How natural were grief and despair, in such
complicated miseries,