organized conspiracy of the day had not as yet overturned the landmarks
of the constitution, he wrote a long letter to his friend Lentulus,[45]
him who had been prominent as Consul in rescuing him from his exile, and
who was now Proconsul in Cilicia. Lentulus had probably taxed him, after
some friendly fashion, with going over from the "optimates" or
Senatorial party to that of the conspirators Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus.
He had been called a deserter for having passed in his earlier years
from the popular party to that of the Senate, and now the leading
optimates were doubtful of him--whether he was not showing himself too
well inclined to do the bidding of the democratic leaders. The one
accusation has been as unfair as the other. In this letter he reminds
Lentulus that a captain in making a port cannot always sail thither in a
straight line, but must tack and haul and use a slant of wind as he can
get it. Cicero was always struggling to make way against a head-wind,
and was running hither and thither in his attempt, in a manner most
perplexing to those who were looking on without knowing the nature of
the winds; but his port was always there, clearly visible to him, if he
could only reach it. That port was the Old Republic, with its well-worn
and once successful institutions. It was not to be "fetched." The winds
had become too perverse, and the entrance had become choked with sand.
But he did his best to fetch it; and, though he was driven hither and
thither in his endeavors, it should be remembered that to lookers-on
such must ever be the appearance of those who are forced to tack about
in search of their port.

I have before me Mr. Forsyth's elaborate and very accurate account of
this letter. "Now, however," says the biographer, "the future lay dark
before him; and not the most sagacious politician at Rome could have
divined the series of events--blundering weakness on the one side and
unscrupulous ambition on the other--which led to the Dictatorship of
Caesar and the overthrow of the constitution." Nothing can be more true.
Cicero was probably the most sagacious politician in Rome; and he,
though he did understand much of the weakness--and, it should be added,
of the greed--of his own party, did not foresee the point which Caesar
was destined to reach, and which was now probably fixed before Caesar's
own eyes. But I cannot agree with Mr. Forsyth in the result at which he
had arrived when he quoted a passage from