ebted for the preservation and publication of Cicero's correspondence.
He wrote, also, a biography of him, which Plutarch had seen, and of which
he probably made use in his own 'Life of Cicero', but which has not come
down to us.

There was another of his household for whom Cicero had the same affection.
This was Sositheus, also a slave, but a man, like Tiro, of some
considerable education, whom he employed as his reader. His death affected
Cicero quite as the loss of a friend. Indeed, his anxiety is such, that
his Roman dignity is almost ashamed of it. "I grieve", he says, "more than
I ought for a mere slave". Just as one might now apologise for making too
much fuss about a favourite dog; for the slave was looked upon in scarcely
a higher light in civilised Rome. They spoke of him in the neuter gender,
as a chattel; and it was gravely discussed, in case of danger in a storm
at sea, which it would be right first to cast overboard to lighten the
ship, a valuable horse or an indifferent slave. Hortensius, the rival
advocate who has been mentioned, a man of more luxurious habits and less
kindly spirit than Cicero, who was said to feed the pet lampreys in his
stews much better than he did his slaves, and to have shed tears at the
death of one of these ugly favourites, would have probably laughed at
Cicero's concern for Sositheus and Tiro.

But indeed every glimpse of this kind which Cicero's correspondence
affords us gives token of a kindly heart, and makes us long to know
something more. Some have suspected him of a want of filial affection,
owing to a somewhat abrupt and curt announcement in a letter to Atticus
of his father's death; and his stanch defenders propose to adopt,
with Madvig, the reading, _discessit_--"left us", instead of
_decessit_--"died". There really seems no occasion. Unless Atticus
knew the father intimately, there was no need to dilate upon the old man's
death; and Cicero mentions subsequently, in terms quite as brief, the
marriage of his daughter and the birth of his son--events in which we are
assured he felt deeply interested. If any further explanation of this
seeming coldness be required, the following remarks of Mr. Forsyth are
apposite and true:

"The truth is, that what we call _sentiment_ was almost unknown to
the ancient Romans, in whose writings it would be as vain to look for it
as to look for traces of Gothic architecture amongst classic ruins. And
this is something more than a mere ill