us
to Titus Titius, a lieutenant then serving under Pompey.[62] In this he
is very anxious to induce Titius to let Avianus know all the good
things that Cicero had said of him. In our times we sometimes send our
letters of introduction open by the hands of the person introduced, so
that he may himself read his own praise; but the Romans did not scruple
to ask that this favor might be done for them. "Do me this favor.
Titius, of being kind to Avianus; but do me also the greater favor of
letting Avianus know that I have asked you." What Cicero did to Titius
other noble Romans did in their communications with their friends in the
provinces. In another letter to Marius he expresses his great joy at the
condemnation of that Munatius Plancus who had been Tribune when Clodius
was killed. Plancus had harangued the people, exciting them against Milo
and against Cicero, and had led to the burning of the Senate-house and
of the temple next door. For this Plancus could not be accused during
his year of office, but he had been put upon his trial when that year
was over. Pompey had done his best to save him, but in vain; and Cicero
rejoices not only that the Tribune who had opposed him should be
punished, but that Pompey should have been beaten, which he attributes
altogether to the favor shown toward himself by the jury.[63] He is
aroused to true exultation that there should have been men on the bench
who, having been chosen by Pompey in order that they might acquit this
man, had dared to condemn him. Cicero had himself spoken against Plancus
on the occasion. Sextus Clodius, who had been foremost among the
rioters, was also condemned.

[Sidenote: B.C. 52, aetat. 55.]

This was the year in which Caesar was so nearly conquered by the Gauls at
Gergovia, and in which Vercingetorix, having shut himself up in Alesia,
was overcome at last by the cruel strategy of the Romans. The brave
Gaul, who had done his best to defend his country and had carried
himself to the last with a fine gallantry, was kept by his conqueror
six years in chains and then strangled amid the glories of that
conqueror's triumph, a signal instance of the mercy which has been
attributed to Caesar as his special virtue. In this year, too, Cicero's
dialogues with Atticus, De Legibus, were written. He seems to have
disturbed his labors in the Forum with no other work.

CHAPTER IV.

_CILICIA._

[Sidenote: B.C. 51, aetat. 56.]

We cannot but think that at thi