uel. His letters had been rash, and his language
violent. In short, we gather from the brother's testimony that Quintus
Cicero was very ill-fitted to be the civil governor of a province.

The only work which we have from Cicero belonging to this year, except
his letters, is the speech, or part of the speech, he made for Lucius
Valerius Flaccus. Flaccus had been Praetor when Cicero was Consul, and
had done good service, in the eyes of his superior officers, in the
matter of the Catiline conspiracy. He had then gone to Asia as governor,
and, after the Roman manner, had fleeced the province. That this was so
there is no doubt. After his return he was accused, was defended by
Cicero, and was acquitted. Macrobius tells us that Cicero, by the
happiness of a bon-mot, brought the accused off safely, though he was
manifestly guilty. He adds also that Cicero took care not to allow the
joke to appear in the published edition of his speech.[266] There are
parts of the speech which have been preserved, and are sufficiently
amusing even to us. He is very hard upon the Greeks of Asia, the class
from which the witnesses against Flaccus were taken. We know here in
England that a spaniel, a wife, and a walnut-tree may be beaten with
advantage. Cicero says that in Asia there is a proverb that a Phrygian
may be improved in the same way. "Fiat experimentum in corpore vili." It
is declared through Asia that you should take a Carian for your
experiment. The "last of the Mysians" is the well-known Asiatic term for
the lowest type of humanity. Look through all the comedies, you will
find the leading slave is a Lydian. Then he turns to these poor
Asiatics, and asks them whether any one can be expected to think well of
them, when such is their own testimony of themselves! He attacks the
Jew, and speaks of the Jewish religion as a superstition worthy in
itself of no consideration. Pompey had spared the gold in the Temple of
Jerusalem, because he thought it wise to respect the religious
prejudices of the people; but the gods themselves had shown, by
subjecting the Jews to the Romans, how little the gods had regarded
these idolatrous worshippers! Such were the arguments used; and they
prevailed with the judges--or jury, we should rather call them--to whom
they were addressed.

CHAPTER XII.

_HIS EXILE._

We now come to that period of Cicero's life in which, by common consent
of all who have hitherto written of him, he is supposed to have