every teller of a good story in
order that the story may be good. Such "mendaciuncula" are in the mouth
of every diner-out in London, and we may pity the dinner-parties at
which they are not used. Reference is made to them now because the use
of the word by Cicero, having been misunderstood by some who have
treated his name with severity, has been brought forward in proof of his
falsehood. You shall tell a story about a very little man, and say that
he is only thirty-six inches. You know very well that he is more than
four feet high. That will be a "mendaciunculum," according to Cicero.
The phrase has been passed on from one enemy to another, till the little
fibs of Cicero's recommending have been supposed to be direct lies
suggested by him to all advocates, and therefore continually used by him
as an advocate. They have been only the garnishing of his drolleries. As
an advocate, he was about as false and about as true as an advocate of
our own day.[136] That he was not paid, and that our English barristers
are paid for the work they do, makes, I think, no difference either in
the innocency or the falseness of the practice. I cannot but believe
that, hereafter, an improved tone of general feeling will forbid a man
of honor to use arguments which he thinks to be untrue, or to make
others believe that which he does not believe himself. Such is not the
state of things now in London, nor was it at Rome in Cicero's time.
There are touches of eloquence in the plea for Fonteius, but the reader
will probably agree with me that the orator was well aware that the late
governor who was on his trial had misused those unfortunate Gauls.

In the year following that of Cicero's AEdileship were written the first
of his epistles which have come to us. He was then not yet thirty-nine
years old--B.C. 68--and during that year and the next seven were written
eleven letters, all to Atticus. Those to his other friends--Ad
Familiares, as we have been accustomed to call them; Ad Diversos, they
are commonly called now--began only with the close of his consular year.
How it has come to pass that there have been preserved only those which
were written after a period of life at which most men cease to be free
correspondents, cannot be said with certainty. It has probably been
occasioned by the fact that he caused his letters to be preserved as
soon as he himself perceived how great would be their value. Of the
nature of their value it is hardly poss