he short time
since the Republic has been overturned I have written more than in all
my former years."[329] That, again, he could not have written after
Caesar had fallen. We are left, indeed, to judge, from the whole nature
of the discourse, that it was written at the period in which the wrongs
done by Caesar to Rome--wrongs at any rate as they appeared to
Cicero--were just culminating in that regal pride of action which led to
his slaughter. It was written then, but was published a few months
afterward.

CHAPTER XIV.

_CICERO'S RELIGION._

I should hardly have thought it necessary to devote a chapter of my book
to the religion of a pagan, had I not, while studying Cicero's life,
found that I was not dealing with a pagan's mind. The mind of the Roman
who so lived as to cause his life to be written in after-times was at
this period, in most instances, nearly a blank as to any ideas of a God.
Horace is one who in his writing speaks much of himself. Ovid does so
still more constantly. They are both full of allusions to "the gods."
They are both aware that it is a good thing to speak with respect of the
national worship, and that the orders of the Emperor will be best
obeyed by believers. "Dis te minorem quod geris, imperas," says Horace,
when, in obedience probably to Augustus, he tells his fellow-citizens
that they are forgetting their duties in their unwillingness to pay for
the repairs of the temples. "Superi, quorum sumus omnia," says Ovid,
thinking it well to show in one of his writings, which he sent home from
his banishment, that he still entertained the fashionable creed. But
they did not believe. It was at that time the fashion to pretend a light
belief, in order that those below might live as though they believed,
and might induce an absolute belief in the women and the children. It
was not well that the temple of the gods should fall into ruins. It was
not well that the augurs, who were gentlemen of high family, should go
for nothing. Caesar himself was the high-priest, and thought much of the
position, but he certainly was bound by no priestcraft. A religious
belief was not expected from a gentleman. Religious ceremonies had
gradually sunk so low in the world's esteem that the Roman nobility had
come to think of their gods as things to swear by, or things to amuse
them, or things from which, if times were bad with them, some doubtful
assistance might perchance come. In dealing with ordinary pagans o