certainly commonplace and probably corrupt, and
amidst a population, perhaps acute and accomplished, but certainly
servile and ill content, and in some parts predatory and barbarous. At
the best, they would be emphatically provincial, in a dreary sense of
the word. He felt unequal to the worry and bore of the whole business,
and reproached himself with the folly of the undertaking. Of course,
this regret is mingled with his usual self-congratulation on the purity
with which he means to manage his province. But even that feeling is not
strong enough to prevent his longing earnestly to have the period of
banishment as short as possible, or to prevent the alarm with which he
hears of a probable invasion by the Parthians. One effect of his almost
two years' absence from Rome was, I think, to deprive him of the power
of judging clearly of the course of events. He had constant intelligence
and excellent correspondents--especially Caelius--still he could not
really grasp what was going on under the surface: and when he returned
to find the civil war on the point of breaking out, he was, after all,
taken by surprise, and had no plan of action ready. This, as well as his
government of the province, will be fully illustrated in the next volume
of the correspondence.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Cicero's Correspondents.]

The persons to whom the chief letters are addressed in this volume,
besides Atticus, are Cicero's brother Quintus and P. Lentulus Spinther.
There are two excellent letters to M. Marius, and one very interesting,
though rather surprising, epistle to L. Lucceius. Others of more than
average interest are to Terentia, M. Fadius Gallus, C. Scribonius Curio,
and Tiro.

[Sidenote: Titus Pomponius Atticus.]

ATTICUS (B.C. 109-32) is a man of whom we should be glad to know more
than we do. He was the friend of all the leading men of the day--Pompey,
Caesar, Cicero, Antony, Brutus--father-in-law of Agrippa, and survived to
be a constant correspondent of Augustus, between B.C. 43 and his death
in B.C. 32. He was spared and respected by both sides in the civil
wars, from Sulla to the Second Triumvirate. The secret of his success
seems to have been that he was no man's rival. He resolutely declined
all official employment, even on the staff of his brother-in-law Quintus
Cicero. He committed himself to no side in politics, and, not being in
the senate, had no occasion by vote or speech to wound t