art. How far his taste was really
cultivated in this respect is difficult for us to judge. Some passages
in his letters to Atticus might lead us to suspect that, as Disraeli
concludes, he was rather a collector than a real lover of art. His appeals
to his friend to buy up for him everything and anything, and his surrender
of himself entirely to Atticus's judgment in such purchases, do not
bespeak a highly critical taste. In a letter to another friend, he seems
to say that he only bought statuary as "furniture" for the gymnasium at
his country-seat; and he complains that four figures of Bacchanals, which
this friend had just bought for him, had cost more than he would care to
give for all the statues that ever were made. On the other hand, when he
comes to deal with Verres's wholesale plunder of paintings and statues in
Sicily, he talks about the several works with considerable enthusiasm.
Either he really understood his subject, or, like an able advocate, he
had thoroughly got up his brief. But the art-notices which are scattered
through his works show a considerable acquaintance with the artist-world
of his day. He tells us, in his own admirable style, the story of Zeuxis,
and the selection which he made from all the beauties of Crotona, in
order to combine their several points of perfection in his portrait of
Helen; he refers more than once, and always in language which implies an
appreciation of the artist, to the works of Phidias, especially that
which is said to have cost him his life--the shield of Minerva; and he
discusses, though it is but by way of illustration, the comparative
points of merit in the statues of Calamis, and Myron, and Polycletus,
and in the paintings of the earlier schools of Zeuxis, Polygnotus, and
Timanthes, with their four primitive colours, as compared with the more
finished schools of Protogenes and Apelles.

CHAPTER IX.

CICERO'S CORRESPONDENCE.

I. ATTICUS.

It seems wonderful how, in the midst of all his work, Cicero found time to
keep up such a voluminous correspondence. Something like eight hundred of
his letters still remain to us, and there were whole volumes of them long
preserved which are now lost,[1] to say nothing of the very many which may
never have been thought worth preserving. The secret lay in his wonderful
energy and activity. We find him writing letters before day-break, during
the service of his meals, on his journeys, and dictating them to an
amanuensis