212 ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. 



to retain it. We have elsewhere 1 described his vacillations betwee 

 the several members of the Triumvirate ; his defence of Vatinius to 

 please Caesar ; and of his bitter political enemy Gabinius, to ingratiate 

 himself with Pompey. His personal history in the meanwhile fur- 

 nishes little worth noticing, except his election into the college of 

 Augurs, a dignity which had been a particular object of his ambition. 

 Governor of His appointment to the government of Cilicia, which took place about 

 five years after his return from exile, was in consequence of Pompey's 

 law, which obliged those senators of consular or praetorian rank, who 

 had never held any foreign command, to divide the vacant provinces 

 among them. This office, which we have above seen him decline, he 

 now accepted with feelings of extreme reluctance, dreading perhaps 

 the military occupations which the movements of the Parthians in 

 that quarter rendered necessary. Yet if we consider the state and 

 splendour with which the proconsuls were surrounded, and the opportu- 

 nities afforded them for almost legalised plunder and extortion, we 

 must confess that this insensibility to the common objects of human 

 cupidity was the token of no ordinary mind. The singular disinterest- 

 edness and integrity of his administration, as well as his success against 

 the enemy, are adverted to in our memoir of Caesar. The latter he 

 exaggerated from the desire universally felt of appearing to excel in 

 those things for which nature has not adapted us. 



His return to Italy was followed by earnest endeavours to reconcile 

 Pompey with Caesar, and by very spirited behaviour when Caesar re- 

 quired his presence in the senate. On this occasion he felt the glow 

 of self-approbation with which his political conduct seldom repaid 

 him : " Credo" he writes to Atticus, " credo hunc (Caesarem) me lion 

 amare ; at ego me amavi : quod mini jam pridem usu non venit." 2 

 But this independent temper was but transient. At no period of his 

 public life did he display such miserable vacillation as at the opening 

 of the civil war. We find him first accepting a commission from the 

 Republic ; 3 then courting Caesar ; next, on Pompey's sailing for 

 Greece, resolving to follow him thither ; presently determining to 

 stand neuter ; then bent on retiring to the Pompeians in Sicily ; and, 

 when after all he had joined their camp in Greece, discovering such 

 timidity and discontent, as to draw from Pompey the bitter reproof, 

 " Cupio ad hostes Cicero transeat, ut nos timeat." 4 



General con- On his return to Italy, after the battle of Pharsalia, he had the 



battifo" the mortification of learning that his brother and nephew were making 



Pharsalia. their peace with Caesar, by throwing on himself the blame of their 



opposition to the conqueror. And here we see one of those elevated 



1 History of the Roman Empire, in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. 



2 [" I believe I have not his (Cassar's) approval ; but I have my own ; which, 

 for a long time, I have not been used to enjoy." Editor.'] Ad Atticum, ix. 18. 



3 Ibid. vii. 11, ix. 6, 119, x. 8 and 9, &c. 



* [" I wish Cicero would go over to the enemy, that he may fear us." Editor.'] 

 Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii. ?. 



