t
up on the rostra the heads of those who had been slain; but now the city
was not able to restrain its tears when the head of Cicero was seen
there, upon the spot from which the citizens had so often listened to
his words."[22] Such is the testimony given to this man by the writers
who may be supposed to have known most of him as having been nearest to
his time. They all wrote after him. Sallust, who was certainly his
enemy, wrote of him in his lifetime, but never wrote in his dispraise.
It is evident that public opinion forbade him to do so. Sallust is never
warm in Cicero's praise, as were those subsequent authors whose words I
have quoted, and has been made subject to reproach for envy, for having
passed too lightly over Cicero's doings and words in his account of
Catiline's conspiracy; but what he did say was to Cicero's credit. Men
had heard of the danger, and therefore, says Sallust,[23] "They
conceived the idea of intrusting the consulship to Cicero. For before
that the nobles were envious, and thought that the consulship would be
polluted if it were conferred on a _novus homo_, however distinguished.
But when danger came, envy and pride had to give way." He afterward
declares that Cicero made a speech against Catiline most brilliant, and
at the same time useful to the Republic. This was lukewarm praise, but
coming from Sallust, who would have censured if he could, it is as
eloquent as any eulogy. There is extant a passage attributed to Sallust
full of virulent abuse of Cicero, but no one now imagines that Sallust
wrote it. It is called the Declamation of Sallust against Cicero, and
bears intrinsic evidence that it was written in after years. It suited
some one to forge pretended invectives between Sallust and Cicero, and
is chiefly noteworthy here because it gives to Dio Cassius a foundation
for the hardest of hard words he said against the orator.[24]

Dio Cassius was a Greek who wrote in the reign of Alexander Severus,
more than two centuries and a half after the death of Cicero, and he no
doubt speaks evil enough of our hero. What was the special cause of
jealousy on his part cannot probably be now known, but the nature of his
hatred may be gathered from the passage in the note, which is so
foul-mouthed that it can be only inserted under the veil of his own
language.[25] Among other absurdities Dio Cassius says of Cicero that in
his latter days he put away a gay young wife, forty years younger than
himself,