tain high positions in the Roman commonwealth. He placed them, therefore, under the instruction of a distinguished teacher at Rome.

He soon showed unmistakable signs of oratorical talent, and in two speeches which he delivered at about the age of twenty-six, he won general applause. Ambitious to reach the highest state of pefection possible in his now adopted studies, he went to Athens, where, as he tells us himself, no subjects engaged profounder study and investigation. Here he remained two years and returned again to Rome. He immediately showed the result of his stay at Athens in the increased power and skill of his eloquence. He was employed in a variety of private and public trials and soon became an aspirant for official station. He was chosen ædile, then prætor, and finally consul, the highest political position at that time at Rome.

Immediately after his elevation to the consulship an opportunity was presented to him for the fullest display of his powers. Rome at that time had become a hotbed for all kinds of political corruption, unlawful ambition, and, to use his own expression, "unbridled audacity." To disperse this seething mass and prevent its endangering the republic was his first duty in his high office.

Lucius Sergius Catiline was a descendant of a patrician family of some distinction, but his own fortunes had reached a very low ebb. He had been a strong supporter and ready instrument of Sylla,

who at one time held sway at Rome. He united to depraved tastes, cruel and licentious instincts, badness, cunning and ferocity.

Scarcely was Cicero settled in power when Catiline, drawing around him men of similar tastes and like fortunes to himself, formed a conspiracy to overthrow the government, and plant himself and his followers on the ruins. Cicero detected the plot and boldly exposed the whole matter in the Roman Senate in the presence of the conspirator himself. His plan was not to bring the culprit to trial in Rome, where he could summon his adherents and foil the regular channels of the law by intimidation, bribery for violence, but to drive him and his adherents from the city and then follow and destroy them. He thus could gain a splendid opportunity to display his great powers of oratory, rid the city of the enemy, and win the additional reputation of defeating him in regular warfare. The plan was crowned with success in each particular. Having abundant evidence of the conspiracy, of which he himself was to be one of the first victims, he convened the Senate at an early hour. Rising from his seat, he poured forth on Catiline a torrent of well-directed invective, charging him with the crime. No one dared come to the defense. The latter withdrew from Rome, and his few followers were soon dispersed.

The orations against Catiline are among Cicero's most celebrated efforts. They are bold, abrupt,

pointed, and crushing, and are the models universally studied in our schools. Their great aim was to hold up Catiline as an object of hatred and disdain. Many others, however, can be read with much greater profit. There is no close chain of reasoning leading through a maze of disputed facts to clear and logical deductions. For this quality we must look to his other numerous speeches.

Then, as now, there were many conflicting interests in the State, and each had its bold and ready leader. Rome at this period was undergoing one of those great transformations that occur at least once in every organized government. She was about to change forever those institutions under which she had existed for seven hundred years. She was no longer able to withstand the strain to which it was being continually subjected by the clashing forces.

The Senate, the aristocracy, the knights, the patrician order, wedded to opulence, to power, not to say arrogance and tyranny, leaned for support on Cneius Pompey. The tribe of demagogues, of abandoned spendthrifts, needy politicians, those to whom virtue meant shame, and good government oblivion, were led by an abandoned but bold and profligate demagogue named Clodius. The party of aspiring young politicians, men of good talents but loose habits, attracted rather by brilliant adventure than by staid respectability, followed the fortunes of Julius Cæsar.

To the second of these parties Cicero was an ob

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ject of undisguised hatred. The party of Pompey was his nearest choice, but the rising popularity of Cæsar made it apparent that a clash must soon come between those great leaders, and Cicero would be called upon to make a final decision as to which he would lend the power of his name. Meanwhile, the party of Clodius gained strength, and with its strength increased audacity and violence. Cicero was the grand object for destruction. Cæsar had been assigned to Gaul and Pompey had retired to one of his suburban villas, and thus the great orator was left to the mercy of the Roman mob, headed by Clodius. The natural result followed. The Senate and the better class of citizens being deterred by the populace, the demagogue procured a decree banishing Cicero from Rome and consigning his property to destruction. The decree was ruthlessly carried out, and he who a few years before had won the title of Second Founder of Rome, was an outcast from her limits. The popular tumult, however, soon subsided; the excesses of the demagogue soon wasted his strength. The friends of Cicero began to take courage, and a general uprising to quell the tumult raised by Clodius was the result. Even Pompey felt called upon to place his hand against the anarchist.

Clodius himself was slain by a friend of Cicero named Milo, and a decree was passed recalling the eloquent patriot from exile, and ordering his houses to be rebuilt at the public expense. His return

was a triumph, and his welcome atoned to some extent for the bitterness of his exile.

But though Clodius was dead and Cicero returned, the evils of the republic were none the less pressing and dangerous. For a few years he devoted his time to the defense of his clients and the interests of the republic. He was offered and accepted the government of Cilicia, which included several other provinces, and thus his fortunes began to mend. But the improvement was of short life. Domestic and other troubles began to open a breach between Cæsar and Pompey. It gradually began to widen, until a resort to arms seemed to be mutu

ally agreed upon. No matter which triumphed, the death of the republic was the inevitable result, and this event meant the political if not the physical death of Cicero.

He hesitated, advanced and retreated again and again, from one resolution to another, first coqueting with one party and then with the other. It is at this point that his career is most open to adverse criticism. It is easy to see now what was the best course for him to pursue, namely, to keep aloof from the conflict altogether, but it was not so easy to see or to judge then. We have not to go far for an explanation of his conduct. Cicero was a man of words and not of deeds. While he thought, the other parties to the great drama acted. While neither Cæsar, Pompey, Octavius, nor Antony, with all their talents, could cope with him in the Senate or