o Verres at any rate, in impudence! "I am not sorry to
see," he goes on to say, "that that life which has always been the life
of my own choosing, has now been made a necessity to me by the law which
I have laid down for myself."[122] Mr. Pecksniff spoke of himself in the
same way, but no one, I think, believed him. Cicero probably was
believed. But the most wonderful thing is, that his manner of life
justified what he said of himself. When others of his own order were
abandoned to lust, iniquity, and shamelessness, he lived in purity, with
clean hands, doing good as far as was in his power to those around him.
A laugh will be raised at his expense in regard to that assertion of his
that, even in the matter of arrogance, his conduct should be the
opposite of that of Verres. But this will come because I have failed to
interpret accurately the meaning of those words, "oris oculorumque illa
contumacia ac superbia quam videtis." Verres, as we can understand, had
carried himself during the trial with a bragging, brazen, bold face,
determined to show no shame as to his own doings. It is in this, which
was a matter of manner and taste, that Cicero declares that he will be
the man's opposite as well as in conduct. As to the ordinary boastings,
by which it has to be acknowledged that Cicero sometimes disgusts his
readers, it will be impossible for us to receive a just idea of his
character without remembering that it was the custom of a Roman to
boast. We wait to have good things said of us, or are supposed to wait.
The Roman said them of himself. The "veni, vidi, vici" was the ordinary
mode of expression in those times, and in earlier times among the
Greeks.[123] This is distasteful to us; and it will probably be
distasteful to those who come after us, two or three hundred years
hence, that this or that British statesman should have made himself an
Earl or a Knight of the Garter. Now it is thought by many to be proper
enough. It will shock men in future days that great peers or rich
commoners should have bargained for ribbons and lieutenancies and
titles. Now it is the way of the time. Though virtue and vice may be
said to remain the same from all time to all time, the latitudes allowed
and the deviations encouraged in this or the other age must be
considered before the character of a man can be discovered. The
boastings of Cicero have been preserved for us. We have to bethink
ourselves that his words are 2000 years old. There is