shilling of expense
since he had entered it. Not a penny had been taken on his own behalf or
on that of the Republic by any belonging to him, except on one day by
one Tullius, and by him indeed under cover of the law. This dirty fellow
was a follower with whom Titinius had furnished him. When he was passing
from Tarsus back into the centre of his province wondering crowds came
out to him, the people not understanding how it had been that no letters
had been sent to them exacting money, and that none of his staff had
been quartered on them. In former years during the winter months they
had groaned under exactions. Municipalities with money at their command
had paid large sums to save themselves from the quartering of soldiers
on them. The island of Cyprus, which on a former occasion had been made
to pay nearly L50,000 on this head,[102] had been asked for nothing by
him. He had refused to have any honors paid to him in return for this
conduct. He had prohibited the erection of statues, shrines, and bronze
chariots in his name--compliments to Roman generals which had become
common. The harvest that year was bad; but so fully convinced were the
people of his honest dealing, that they who had saved up corn--the
regraters--brought it freely into market at his coming. As some scourge
from hell must have been the presence of such governors as Appius and
his predecessors among a people timid but industrious like these Asiatic
Greeks. Like an unknown, unexpected blessing, direct from heaven, must
have been the coming of a Cicero.

Now I will tell the story of Brutus and Scaptius and their
money--premising that it has been told by Mr. Forsyth with great
accuracy and studied fairness. Indeed, there is not a line in Mr.
Forsyth's volume which is not governed by a spirit of justice. He,
having thought that Cicero had been too highly praised by Middleton, and
too harshly handled by subsequent critics, has apparently written his
book with the object of setting right these exaggerations. But in his
comments on this matter of Brutus and Scaptius he seems to me not to
have considered the difference in that standard of honor and honesty
which governs himself, and that which prevailed in the time of Cicero.
Not seeing, as I think, how impossible it was for a Roman governor to
have achieved that impartiality of justice with which a long course of
fortunate training has imbued an English judge, he accuses Cicero of
"trifling with equity." T