ongue makes enemies more
bitter than his sword. But Cicero, when the time came, never shirked his
foe. Whether it was Verres or Catiline, or Clodius or Antony, he was
always there, ready to take that foe by the throat, and ready to offer
his own in return. At moments such as that there was none of the fear
which stands aghast at the wrath of the injured one, and makes the man
who is a coward quail before the eyes of him who is brave.

His friendship for Pompey is perhaps, of all the strong feelings of his
life, the one most requiring excuse, and the most difficult to excuse.
For myself I can see why it was so; but I cannot do that without
acknowledging in it something which derogated from his greatness. Had he
risen above Pompey, he would have been great indeed; for I look upon it
as certain that he did see that Pompey was as untrue to the Republic as
Caesar. He saw it occasionally, but it was not borne in upon him at all
times that Pompey was false. Caesar was not false. Caesar was an open foe.
I doubt whether Pompey ever saw enough to be open. He never realized to
himself more than men. He never rose to measures--much less to the
reason for them. When Caesar had talked him over, and had induced him to
form the Triumvirate, Pompey's politics were gone. Cicero never
blanched. Whether, full of new hopes, he attacked Chrysogonus with all
the energy of one to whom his injured countrymen were dear, or, with
the settled purpose of his life, he accused Verres in the teeth of the
coming Consul Hortensius; whether in driving out Catiline, or in
defending Milo; whether, even, in standing up before Caesar for
Marcellus, or in his final onslaught upon Antony, his purpose was still
the same. As time passed on he took to himself coarser weapons, and went
down into the arena and fought the beasts at Ephesus. Alas, it is so
with mankind! Who can strive to do good and not fight beasts? And who
can fight them but after some fashion of their own? He was fighting
beasts at Ephesus when he was defending Milo. He was an oligarch, but he
wanted the oligarchy round him to be true and honest! It was impossible.
These men would not be just, and yet he must use them. Milo and Caelius
and Curio were his friends. He knew them to be bad, but he could not
throw off from him all that were bad men. If by these means he could win
his way to something that might be good, he would pardon their evil. As
we make our way on to the end of his life we find tha