iled no disgrace. But Cicero, with eyes
within him which saw farther than the eyes of other men, perceived the
baseness of the stain. It has been said also of him that he was not
altogether free from reproach. It has been suggested that he accepted
payment for his services as an advocate, any such payment being illegal.
The accusation is founded on the knowledge that other advocates allowed
themselves to be paid, and on the belief that Cicero could not have
lived as he did without an income from that source. And then there is a
story told of him that, though he did much at a certain period of his
life to repress the usury, and to excite at the same time the enmity of
a powerful friend, he might have done more. As we go on, the stories of
these things will be told; but the very nature of the allegations
against him prove how high he soared in honesty above the manners of his
day. In discussing the character of the men, little is thought of the
robberies of Sylla, the borrowings of Caesar, the money-lending of
Brutus, or the accumulated wealth of Crassus. To plunder a province, to
drive usury to the verge of personal slavery, to accept bribes for
perjured judgment, to take illegal fees for services supposed to be
gratuitous, was so much the custom of the noble Romans that we hardly
hate his dishonest greed when displayed in its ordinary course. But
because Cicero's honesty was abnormal, we are first surprised, and then,
suspecting little deviations, rise up in wrath against him, because in
the midst of Roman profligacy he was not altogether a Puritan in his
money matters.

Cicero is known to us in three great capacities: as a statesman, an
advocate, and a man of letters. As the combination of such pursuits is
common in our own days, so also was it in his. Caesar added them all to
the great work of his life as a soldier. But it was given to Cicero to
take a part in all those political struggles, from the resignation of
Sylla to the first rising of the young Octavius, which were made on
behalf of the Republic, and were ended by its downfall. His political
life contains the story of the conversion of Rome from republican to
imperial rule; and Rome was then the world. Could there have been no
Augustus, no Nero, and then no Trajan, all Europe would have been
different. Cicero's efforts were put forth to prevent the coming of an
Augustus or a Nero, or the need of a Trajan; and as we read of them we
feel that, had success been p