be a statesman and a patriot
must be judged, and by his writings in the same period that his place in
literature must chiefly be assigned. Before B.C. 63 his biography, if we
had it, would be that of the advocate and the official, no doubt with
certain general views on political questions as they occurred, but not
yet committed definitely to a party, or inclined to regard politics as
the absorbing interest of his life. In his early youth his hero had
been his fellow townsman Marius, in whose honour he composed a poem
about the time of taking the _toga virilis_. But it was as the
successful general, and before the days of the civil war. And though he
served in the army of Sulla in the Marsic war (B.C. 90-88), he always
regarded his cruelties with horror, however much he may have afterwards
approved of certain points of his legislation. It was not till the
consulship that he became definitely a party man[1] and an Optimate, and
even then his feelings were much distracted by a strong
belief--strangely ill-founded--that Pompey would be as successful as a
statesman as he had been fortunate as a general. For him he had also a
warm personal attachment, which never seems to have wholly died out, in
spite of much petulance of language. This partly accounts for the
surrender of B.C. 56, and his acquiescence in the policy of the
triumvirs, an acquiescence never hearty indeed, as far as Caesar and
Crassus were concerned, but in which he consoled himself with the belief
that nothing very unconstitutional could be done while Pompey was
practically directing affairs at Rome.

[Sidenote: The various nature of the Correspondence.]

It is through this period of political change and excitement that the
correspondence will take us, with some important gaps indeed, but on the
whole fullest when it is most wanted to shew the feelings and motives
guiding the active politicians of the day, or at any rate the effect
which events had upon one eager and acute intellect and sensitive heart.
One charm of the correspondence is variety. There is almost every sort
of letter. Those to Atticus are unstudied, spontaneous, and reflect the
varying moods of the writer. At times of special excitement they follow
each other day by day, and sometimes more than once in the same day; and
the writer seems to conceal nothing, however much it might expose him to
ridicule, and to the charge of fickleness, weakness, or even cowardice.
Those addressed to other friend