eradicating an idea from men's minds than a
fact from their practice. This should be proved to us by our own loyalty
to the word "monarch," when nothing can be farther removed from a
monarchy than our own commonwealth. From those first breaches in
republican practice which the historian Florus dates back to the siege
of Numantia,[230] B.C. 133, down far into the reign of Augustus, it took
a century and a quarter to make the people understand that there was no
longer a republican form of government, and to produce a leader who
could himself see that there was room for a despot.

Pompey had his triumph; but the same aristocratic airs which had annoyed
Cicero had offended others. He was shorn of his honors. Only two days
were allowed for his processions. He was irritated, jealous, and no
doubt desirous of making his power felt; but he thought of no diadem.
Caesar saw it all; and he thought of that conspiracy which we have since
called the First Triumvirate.

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, 61, aetat. 45, 46.]

The two years to which this chapter has been given were uneventful in
Cicero's life, and produced but little of that stock of literature by
which he has been made one of mankind's prime favorites. Two discourses
were written and published, and probably spoken, which are now
lost--that, namely, to the people against Metellus, in which, no doubt,
he put forth all that he had intended to say when Metellus stopped him
from speaking at the expiration of his Consulship; the second, against
Clodius and Curio, in the Senate, in reference to the discreditable
Clodian affair. The fragments which we have of this contain those
asperities which he retailed afterward in his letter to Atticus, and are
not either instructive or amusing. But we learn from these fragments
that Clodius was already preparing that scheme for entering the
Tribunate by an illegal repudiation of his own family rank, which he
afterward carried out, to the great detriment of Cicero's happiness. Of
the speeches extant on behalf of Archias and P. Sulla I have spoken
already. We know of no others made during this period. We have one
letter besides this to Atticus, addressed to Antony, his former
colleague, which, like many of his letters, was written solely for the
sake of popularity.

During these years he lived no doubt splendidly as one of the great men
of the greatest city in the world. He had his magnificent new mansion in
Rome, and his various villas, which were a