uld come back. Pompey
thought so, and Cicero. Cato thought so, and Brutus. Caesar, when he came
to think about it, thought the reverse. But even now to us, looking back
with so many things made clear to us, with all the convictions which
prolonged success produces, it is doubtful whether some other milder
change--some such change as Cicero would have advocated--might not have
prevented the tyranny of Augustus, the mysteries of Tiberius, the freaks
of Caligula, the folly of Claudius, and the madness of Nero.

It is an uphill task, that of advocating the cause of a man who has
failed. The Caesars of the world are they who make interesting stories.
That Cicero failed in the great purpose of his life has to be
acknowledged. He had studied the history of his country, and was aware
that hitherto the world had produced nothing so great as Roman power;
and he knew that Rome had produced true patriotism. Her Consuls, her
Censors, her Tribunes, and her Generals had, as a rule, been true to
Rome, serving their country, at any rate till of late years, rather than
themselves. And he believed that liberty had existed in Rome, though
nowhere else. It would be well if we could realize the idea of liberty
which Cicero entertained. Liberty was very dear to him--dear to him not
only as enjoying it himself, but as a privilege for the enjoyment of
others. But it was only the liberty of a few. Half the population of the
Roman cities were slaves, and in Cicero's time the freedom of the city,
which he regarded as necessary to liberty, belonged only to a small
proportion of the population of Italy. It was the liberty of a small
privileged class for which he was anxious. That a Sicilian should be
free under a Roman Proconsul, as a Roman citizen was entitled to be, was
abhorrent to his doctrine. The idea of cosmopolitan freedom--an idea
which exists with us, but is not common to very many even now--had not
as yet been born: that care for freedom which springs from a desire to
do to others as we would that they should do to us. It required Christ
to father that idea; and Cicero, though he was nearer to Christianity
than any who had yet existed, had not reached it. But this liberty,
though it was but of a few, was so dear to him that he spent his life in
an endeavor to preserve it. The kings had been expelled from Rome
because they had trampled on liberty. Then came the Republic, which we
know to have been at its best no more than an oligarchy; but