usual honors and voted statues for him. It had all been done in
order that the Republic might be preserved, but had all been done in
vain. It must have distressed him sorely at this time as he reflected
how much eulogy he had wasted. To be sneered at by the boy when he came
back to Rome to assume the Consulship, and to be told, with a laugh,
that he had been a little late in his welcome! And to hear that the boy
had decreed his death in conjunction with Antony and Lepidus! This was
all that Rome could do for him at the end--for him who had so loved
her, suffered so much for her, and been so valiant on her behalf! Are
you not a little late to welcome me as one of my friends? the boy had
said when Cicero had bowed and smiled to him. Then the next tidings that
reached him contained news that he was condemned! Was this the youth of
whom he had declared, since the year began, that "he knew well all the
boy's sentiments; that nothing was dearer to the lad than the Republic,
nothing more reverent than the dignity of the Senate?" Was it for this
that he had bade the Senate "fear nothing" as to young Octavian, "but
always still look for better and greater things?" Was it for this that
he had pledged his faith for him with such confident words--"I promise
for him, I become his surety, I engage myself, conscript fathers, that
Caius Caesar will always be such a citizen as he has shown himself
to-day?"[238] And thus the young man had redeemed his tutor's pledges on
his behalf! "A little late to welcome me, eh?" his pupil had said to
him, and had agreed that he should be murdered. But, as I have said, the
story of that speech rests on doubtful authority.

Had not Cicero too rejoiced at the uncle's murder? And having done so,
was he not bound to endure the enmity he had provoked? He had not indeed
killed Caesar, or been aware that he was to be killed; but still it must
be said of him that, having expressed his satisfaction at what had been
done, he had identified himself with those who had killed him, and must
share their fate. The slaying of a tyrant was almost by law enjoined
upon Romans--was at any rate regarded as a virtue rather than a crime.
There of course arises the question, who is to decide whether a man be a
tyrant? and the idea being radically wrong, becomes enveloped in
difficulty out of which there is no escape. But there remains as a fact
the existence of the feeling which was at the time held to have
justified Brutus--a