"Though you
will help me, others I know will blame me." The same feeling is
expressed beautifully, but no doubt falsely, by Horace when he
declares, as Cicero had done, his own indifference to such delicacies:

"Gems, marbles, ivory, Tuscan statuettes,
Pictures, gold plate, Gaetulian coverlets,
There are who have not. One there is, I trow,
Who cares not greatly if he has or no."[288]

Many years afterward, in the time of Tiberius, Velleius Paterculus says
the same when he is telling how ignorant Mummius was of sculpture, who,
when he had taken Corinth, threatened those who had to carry away the
statues from their places, that if they broke any they should be made to
replace them. "You will not doubt, however," the historian says, "that
it would have been better for the Republic to remain ignorant of these
Corinthian gems than to understand them as well as it does now. That
rudeness befitted the public honor better than our present taste."[289]
Cicero understood well enough, with one side of his intelligence, that
as the longing for these things grew in the minds of rich men, as the
leading Romans of the day became devoted to luxury rather than to work,
the ground on which the Republic stood must be sapped. A Marcellus or a
Scipio had taken glory in ornamenting the city. A Verres or even an
Hortensius--even a Cicero--was desirous of beautiful things for his own
house. But still, with the other side of his intelligence, he saw that a
perfect citizen might appreciate art, and yet do his duty, might
appreciate art, and yet save his country. What he did not see was, that
the temptations of luxury, though compatible with virtue, are
antagonistic to it. The camel may be made to go through the eye of the
needle--but it is difficult.

APPENDIX D.

(_See_ ch. VII., note [144])

PRO LEGE MANILIA--CA. X., XVI.

"Utinam, Quirites, virorum fortium, atque innocentium copiam tantam
haberetis, ut haec vobis deliberatio difficilis esset, quemnam
potissimum tantis rebus ac tanto bello praeficiendum putaretis! Nunc
vero cum sit unus Cn. Pompeius, qui non modo eorum hominum, qui nunc
sunt, gloriam, sed etiam antiquitatis memoriam virtute superarit; quae
res est, quae cujusquam animum in hac causa dubium facere posset?
Ego enim sic existimo, in summo imperatore quatuor has res inesse
oportere, scientiam rei militaris, virtutem, auctoritatem,
felicitatem. Quis igitur hoc homine scientior umquam aut fuit, aut