men
more unlike than the stiff-necked Cato and the versatile Cicero.

[Sidenote: B.C. 50, aetat. 57.]

Lucius AEmilius Paullus and C. Clodius Marcellus were Consuls for the
next year. Cicero writes to both of them with tenders of friendship; but
from both of them he asks that they should take care to have a decree of
the Senate passed praising his doings in Cilicia.[97] With us, too, a
returning governor is anxious enough for a good word from the
Prime-minister; but he does not ask for it so openly. The next letter
from Caelius tells him that Appius has been accused as to malpractices in
his government, and that Pompey is in favor of Appius. Curio has gone
over to Caesar. But the important subject is the last handled: "It will
be mean in you if I should have no Greek panthers."[98] The next refers
to the marriages and divorces of certain ladies, and ends with an
anecdote told as to a gentleman with just such ill-natured wit as is
common in London. No one could have suspected Ocella of looking after
his neighbor's wife unless he had been detected thrice in the fact.[99]

From Laodicea he answers a querulous letter which his predecessor had
written, complaining, among other things, that Cicero had failed to show
him personal respect. He proves that he had not done so, and then rises
to a strain of indignation. "Do you think that your grand old names will
affect me who, even before I had become great in the service of my
country, knew how to distinguish between titles and the men who bore
them?"[100]

The next letter to Appius is full of flattery, and asking for favors,
but it begins with a sharp reproof. "Now at last I have received an
epistle worthy of Appius Claudius. The sight of Rome has restored you to
your good-humor. Those I got from you in your journey were such that I
could not read them without displeasure."[101]

In February Cicero wrote a letter to Atticus which is, I think, more
expressive in describing the mind of the man than any other which we
have from him. In it is commenced the telling of a story respecting
Brutus--the Brutus we all know so well--and one Scaptius, of whom no one
would have heard but for this story, which, as it deeply affects the
character of Cicero, must occupy a page or two in our narrative; but I
must first refer to his own account of his own government as again
given here. Nothing was ever so wonderful to the inhabitants of a
province as that they should not have been put to a