of Cicero's Correspondence. The number of Dissertations, Monographs, Articles, and Notes touching on questions of criticism, elucidation, history, and antiquities, suggested by the Epistles is very great; and the stream shows little sign of losing its fulness. Besides the scholars we have named, the services done to Cicero's Correspondence by Gurlitt and Sternkopf are in the highest degree valuable; and, during the last few years, Professor J. S. Reid, of Cambridge, has written in Hermathena a series of most interesting and learned articles on the Epistles. To all these scholars we are deeply indebted, and here gladly acknowledge our obligations in a general way in each passage where they have afforded especial assistance we have endeavoured to make special acknowledgment.

The order of the letters has, for the most part, been maintained as it stood in the Second Edition-not that scholars have not proved that order in some cases to be wrong*-but to make changes would have rendered references all through the succeeding volumes of our edition untrustworthy; and a table of the dates of the several letters, which is given at the end of this volume, will (it is hoped) preclude any serious misguidance.

Thus Mr. Clement Smith, in the Harvard Studies (vol. vii., pp. 71-84), has proved that the order of the early letters in Att. iii. is 1, 3, 2, 5, 4, 6; not 3, 2, 4, 1, 5, 6, as we have given them. See Addenda to the Commentary, Note VI. In this connexion we wish to note our regret that, owing to ignorance of Sternkopf's valuable papers referred to in that Note, we adopted an erroneous reading in Att. iii. 4 (58). The passage should run as is indicated on p. 433, not as it is printed on p. 359. Attention must further be drawn to Mommsen's excellent suggestions indicated on p. *131, note, memini for emi (Comm. 33), and montium for omnium (ib. 30). We also wish to correct sororis, in Commentariolum Petitionis, § 9, into sororum, Mr. Hendrickson, of Chicago, having satisfactorily shown that this is the right reading; see p. 132*.

The difficult question as to Metrical Prose in Cicero's Epistles, which has been raised by Prof. Henri Bornecque's work, La Prose métrique dans la Correspondance de Cicéron (Paris, 1898), we hope to discuss in a new edition of Volume II., which, we trust, will be published before the end of next year.

DUBLIN,

September, 1904.

INTRODUCTION.

I-HISTORICAL.

§ 1. ON THE CHARACTER OF CICERO AS A PUBLIC MAN.

In putting forth an edition of the Letters of Cicero in their order as written, one may dispense with the labour of telling over again the oft-told tale of Cicero's life. The salient facts are set down in a short summary prefixed to each year of Cicero's correspondence. But it will be convenient to take a broad view of Cicero's position in public and private life before we enter on the study of a series of letters which present to us the picture of the downfall of the Roman Republic. No picture could be sadder than this. The most tragic of spectacles is the baffled strength of a blind giant, the helplessness of a Hercules Furens or a Samson Agonistes. And it is with feelings not different that we regard that Republic which had developed such great vital forces, such a disciplined subordination of imagination to logic, and of the individual to the State, slipping into a despotism through the unworthiness of an oligarchy who were either unconscious of her decadence, or even indifferent to it.

The present instalment of the correspondence of Cicero includes only eighty-nine letters. But these are of the highest interest, as they follow the fortunes of Cicero from his entrance into public life through his exile to his restoration. We have prefixed to future volumes of this work some estimate of the character of Cicero as it appears in the letters of those volumes. Our observations at present will mainly have reference to the earlier part of Cicero's career.

B

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The gusts which had menaced the Republic from without had died away before the storm began to brew within. The year after Cicero's birth witnessed the conclusion of the Jugurthine War by Marius and his quæstor Sulla-ominous conjunction; and Cicero was only six years of age when Marius and the pro-consul Catulus,' * by their victory over the Cimbri, made Rome safe from their Northern foes. Henceforth foreign levy' is but a tool in the hands of malice domestic.' In the year of the city 666 (88), the tribune P. Sulpicius, in transferring to Marius the command and province of Sulla, first exercised a power which was afterwards fatal to the Republic-a power which was crushed by Sulla, which was restored by Pompey, which made Pompey despot by the Gabinian and Manilian Laws, and which finally ruined him. In 669 (85) we have a definite foretaste of the Empire in the spectacle of two rival Roman generals—Flaccus and Fimbria-opposing, each in his own interest, Mithridates, the common foreign foe.

In 674 (80), at the age of 26 (just ten years before his famous prosecution of Verres, which may be looked on as launching him in public life), Cicero pleaded his first public or criminal cause. As the last words of the Master-Orator were a denunciation of the tyranny of Antony, so the maiden speech of the rising advocate was levelled against the oppression of Sulla.† It is evident that the charge of parricide brought against Sex. Roscius of Ameria was a political charge; yet in this speech, as well as in his defence of a woman of Arretium the following year, Cicero dared to lift up his voice against injustice, even though not only fear, but strong public partisanship, might have sealed the lips of one who describes the régime of Sulla in the words recuperata respublica (Brut. 311).

* His word was regarded as synonymous with truth, as the common saying, hoc verum est, dixit enim Q. Lutatius (De Orat. ii. 173), testified.

He thus describes its nature in the De Officiis (ii. 51): maxime autem et gloria paritur et gratia defensionibus, eoque maior si quando accidit ut ei subveniatur, qui potentis alicuius opibus circumveniri urgerique videatur: ut nos et saepe alias et adulescentes contra L. Sullae dominantis opes pro S. Roscio Amerino fecimus: quae, ut scis, exstat oratio. The speech pro Quinctio was probably delivered in 673 (81): but it was a civil, not a criminal, case. The remarks in that speech about the proscriptions (§ 70) would seem to prove that the speech was delivered in the latter half of the year, as the proscriptions came to an end in June.