the interesting and now famous Law of the Clause-endings set forth by Professor Th. Zielinski, of St. Petersburg, in his work Das Clauselgesetz in Ciceros Reden (1904), and have found it to hold good to a remarkable degree in many of the more formal letters written by Cicero himself, but in no appreciable degree in the letters of his correspondents.

The difficulty as regards the order of the letters is the same as that noticed in the third edition of the first volume (1904). The order of our original edition is retained, though that order has in some cases been proved to be wrong; because alteration of it would render the references all through the succeeding volumes of our edition untrustworthy. The table given on pp. 302-304 will (it is hoped) in a measure remedy this defect, and enable students to discover without difficulty the approximate chronological order of the several letters.

We desire to thank Mr. Gibbs of the University Press for many useful corrections.

DUBLIN,

May, 1906.

CORRIGENDA.

PAGE

8, a,

line 3 from bottom, for perfeceram 96' read 'perspexeram 96, 1'.

28, b, l. 12, for 'in Cratander's margin' read of a scholar quoted by Orelli'.

INTRODUCTION.

I.-HISTORICAL.

§ 1. CICERO AND THE TRIUMVIRATE.

THE period succeeding Cicero's restoration from exile has been seized on by his detractors as an opportunity for depicting him as a political apostate, or a time-serving trimmer. The whole pack of minor feuilletonistes follow in full cry the lead of the sovran savant, the prince of historical-epoch-makers, Theodor Mommsen. What may be thought of the outrage which he has perpetrated on the fame of Cicero has been already said. We will now try to trace the career of Cicero in the troublous times at which we have arrived, not in the spirit of the public prosecutor of a somewhat feeble criminal, but as the unbiassed spectator of the conduct of a great and good man under singularly difficult circumstances.

6

Even his admirers do not care to dwell on this epoch. Ce n'est pas,' writes Gaston Boissier, une belle époque de sa vie, et ses admirateurs les plus résolus la dissimulent le plus qu'ils le peuvent.' He is generally represented as vacillating between the aristocracy, his old party, and the coalition between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, which is commonly spoken of as the first Triumvirate. We will briefly review the relation of Cicero to the chief events of the period covered by Part iv. of the Correspondence, and to the chief actors who took part in this scene of the Tragedy of the Fall of the Roman Republic.

Cicero is said during this epoch to have continually halted between the Optimates and the Triumvirs. But it would be a mistake to suppose that two clearly defined parties presented

themselves to him that he might choose between them. Gaston Boissier well remarks that 'les questions ne se posent pas aux yeux des contemporains avec la même netteté qu'à ceux de la postérité.' The terms Optimate and Triumvirate have for us a netteté which misleads us when we contemplate their relation to the mind of Cicero. A few years before Optimate meant for him Pompey, or at least the union of Senate and Equites under the leadership of Pompey, the soldier-chief of a free Republic, another Scipio, to whom Cicero should play Laelius. At this time such a party can hardly be said to exist. When Cicero now speaks of the boni, he adds, 'I am not sure that they are not an extinct race,' qui nescio an nulli sint. During the coalition the Optimates, if not extinct, were at all events in a state of suspended animation, from which they were not thoroughly aroused but by the fall of Caesar. This is what Cicero deplores. He does not express regret for any defection from a party, though he deeply regrets that he must give up his old political sympathies.* Writing to Lentulus in 699 (55), he complains, 'You are sensible how difficult it is to lay aside one's political sympathies, especially when they are well grounded and deeply seated.'t And then he goes on to declare that the constitutionalists are extinct, and that his esteem for Pompey, and his natural bias toward him, make him regard all his policy as straightforward and fair.

Now, how does the Triumvirate present itself to Cicero ? The Triumvirate, too, in the main, spells Pompey. In fact, from the Mithridatic War to Pharsalia, Pompey was the imposing figure to Roman eyes. His opinions, his principles, his relations to the parties, seemed the main factors in the political situation to every Roman-except, perhaps, Pompey himself. Cicero constantly

complains that Pompey wrapped himself in mystery; ut loquebatur, he says,‡ must be our refrain, like the kaì тódɛ Þwкvλídov of

* When Cicero tells us that Pompey has in the archives of his pocket-book as long a list of future consuls as the State records have of consuls past,' we feel that the Empire has already begun. Adhesion to the Optimate cause would at this time have been looked on as an act of insanity. How do you suppose I feel?' he writes (110, § 2); I am looked on as a madman if I say what duty bids; as a slave if I follow the dictates of expediency; and if I hold my peace, I am said to be brow-beaten and in thraldom.'

† 119, § 2.

122, § 1: cp. 90, § 2.