who were opposed to him.
It was his idea that political integrity should keep its own hands
clean, but should wink at much dirt in the world at large. Nothing, he
saw, could be done by Catonic rigor. We can see now that Ciceronic
compromises were, and must have been, equally ineffective. The patient
was past cure. But in seeking the truth as to Cicero, we have to
perceive that amid all his doubts, frequently in despondency, sometimes
overwhelmed by the misery and hopelessness of his condition, he did hold
fast by this idea to the end. The frequent expressions made to Atticus
in opposition to this belief are to be taken as the murmurs of his mind
at the moment; as you shall hear a man swear that all is gone, and see
him tear his hair, and shall yet know that there is a deep fund of hope
within his bosom. It was the ingratitude of his political friends, his
"boni" and his "optimates," of Pompey as their head, which tried him the
sorest; but he was always forgiving them, forgiving Pompey as the head
of them, because he knew that, were he to be severed from them, then the
political world must be closed to him altogether.

Of Cicero's strength or Cicero's weakness Pompey seems to have known
nothing. He was no judge of men. Caesar measured him with a great
approach to accuracy. Caesar knew him to be the best Roman of his day;
one who, if he could be brought over to serve in Caesarean ranks, would
be invaluable--because of his honesty, his eloquence, and his
capability; but he knew him as one who must be silenced if he were not
brought to serve on the Caesarean side. Such a man, however, might be
silenced for a while--taught to perceive that his efforts were vain--and
then brought into favor by further overtures, and made of use.
Personally he was pleasant to Caesar, who had taste enough to know that
he was a man worthy of all personal dignity. But Caesar was not, I think,
quite accurate in his estimation, having allowed himself to believe at
the last that Cicero's energy on behalf of the Republic had been
quelled.

[Sidenote: B.C. 58, aetat. 49.]

Now we will go back to the story of Cicero's exile. Gradually during the
preceding year he had learned that Clodius was preparing to attack him,
and to doubt whether he could expect protection from the Triumvirate.
That he could be made safe by the justice either of the people or by
that of any court before which he could be tried, seems never to have
occurred to him. He knew the