lace for him,
and he soon left it--this time a voluntary exile. He wandered from
place to place, and tried as before to find interest and consolation in
philosophy. It was now that he wrote his charming essays on 'Friendship'
and on 'Old Age', and completed his work 'On the Nature of the Gods', and
that on 'Divination'. His treatise 'De Officiis' (a kind of pagan 'Whole
Duty of Man') is also of this date, as well as some smaller philosophical
works which have been lost. He professed himself hopeless of his country's
future, and disgusted with political life, and spoke of going to end his
days at Athens.

But, as before and always, his heart was in the Forum at Rome. Political
life was really the only atmosphere in which he felt himself breathe
vigorously. Unquestionably he had also an earnest patriotism, which would
have drawn him back to his country's side at any time when he believed
that she had need of his help. He was told that he was needed there
now; that there was a prospect of matters going better for the cause of
liberty; that Antony was coming to terms of some kind with the party of
Brutus,--and he returned.

For a short while these latter days brought with them a gleam of triumph
almost as bright as that which had marked the overthrow of Catiline's
conspiracy. Again, on his arrival at Rome, crowds rushed to meet him with
compliments and congratulations, as they had done some thirteen years
before. And in so far as his last days were spent in resisting to the
utmost the basest of all Rome's bad men, they were to him greater than any
triumph. Thenceforth it was a fight to the death between him and Antony;
so long as Antony lived, there could be no liberty for Rome. Cicero left
it to his enemy to make the first attack. It soon came. Two days after his
return, Antony spoke vehemently in the Senate against him, on the occasion
of moving a resolution to the effect that divine honours should be paid
to Caesar. Cicero had purposely stayed away, pleading fatigue after his
journey; really, because such a proposition was odious to him. Antony
denounced him as a coward and a traitor, and threatened to send men to
pull down his house about his head--that house which had once before been
pulled down, and rebuilt for him by his remorseful fellow-citizens.
Cicero went down to the Senate the following day, and there delivered a
well-prepared speech, the first of those fourteen which are known to us
as his 'Philippics'--a na