nd by the closeness of their friendship, we are led to imagine
that the joy of her life depended more on him than on any of her three
husbands. She did not live long with either of them, and died soon after
the birth of a child, having been divorced from the third. I take it,
there was much of triumph in the meeting, though Piso Frugi had died so
lately.

The return of Cicero to Rome was altogether triumphant. It must be
remembered that the contemporary accounts we have had of it are
altogether from his own pen. They are taken chiefly from the orations I
have named above, though subsequent allusions to the glory of his return
to Rome are not uncommon in his works. But had his boasting not been
true, the contradictions to them would have been made in such a way as
to have reached our ears. Plutarch, indeed, declares that Cicero's
account of the glory of his return fell short of the truth.

It may be taken for granted that with that feeble monster, the citizen
populace of Rome, Cicero had again risen to a popularity equal to that
which had been bestowed upon him when he had just driven Catiline out of
Rome. Of what nature were the crowds who were thus loud in the praise of
their great Consul, and as loud afterward in their rejoicings at the
return of the great exile, we must form our own opinion from
circumstantial evidence. There was a mass of people, with keen ears
taking artistic delight in eloquence and in personal graces, but
determined to be idle, and to be fed as well as amused in their
idleness; and there were also vast bands of men ready to fight--bands of
gladiators they have been called, though it is probable that but few of
them had ever been trained to the arena--whose business it was to shout
as well as to fight on behalf of their patrons. We shall not be
justified in supposing that those who on the two occasions named gave
their sweet voices for Cicero were only the well-ordered, though idle,
proportion of the people, whereas they who had voted against him in
favor of Clodius had all been assassins, bullies, and swordsmen. We
shall probably be nearer the mark if we imagine that the citizens
generally were actuated by the prevailing feelings of their leaders at
the moment, but were carried into enthusiasm when enabled, without
detriment to their interests, to express their feelings for one who was
in truth popular with them. When Cicero, after the death of the five
conspirators, declared that the men "had l