t he had always done.

He tells his son plainly how an honest man must live. To be ashamed of
nothing, he must do nothing of which he will be ashamed. But for him
there is this difficulty: "If any one on his entrance into the world has
had laid upon him the greatness of a name won by his father, let us
say--as, my Cicero, has perhaps happened to you--the eyes of all men
will be cast upon him, and inquiry will be made as to his mode of life.
He will be so placed under the meridian sun that no word spoken or deed
done by him shall be hidden.[326] * * * He must live up to the glory to
which he has been born." He gives to his son much advice about the bar.
"But the greatest praise," he says, "comes from defending a man accused;
and especially so when you shall assist one who is surrounded and
ill-treated by the power of some great man. This happened to me more
than once in my youth, when, for instance, I defended Roscius Amerinus
against Sulla's power." The speech is with us extant still.[327] He
tells us much as to the possession of money, and the means of insuring
it in a well-governed state. "Take care that you allow no debts to the
injury of the Republic. You must guard against this at all hazards--but
never by taking from the rich and giving it to the poor. Nothing is so
requisite to the State as public credit--which cannot exist unless
debtors be made to pay what they owe. There was nothing to which I
looked more carefully than this when I was Consul. Horse and foot, they
tried their best; but I opposed them, and freed the Republic from the
threatened evil. Never were debts more easily or more quickly collected.
When men knew that they could not ignore their creditors, then they
paid. But he who was then the conquered is the conqueror now. He has
effected what he contemplated--even though it be not now necessary for
him."[328] From this passage it seems that these books must have been
first written before Caesar's death. Caesar, at the time of Catiline's
conspiracy, had endeavored to annul all debts--that is, to establish
"new tables" according to the Roman idiom--but had failed by Cicero's
efforts. He had since affected it, although he might have held his power
without seeking for the assistance of such debtors. Who could that be
but Caesar? In the beginning of the third book there is another passage
declaring the same thing: "I have not strength enough for silent
solitude, and therefore give myself up to my pen. In t