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Hunc igitur spectemus. Hoc propositum sit nobis exemplum.
Ille se profecisse sciat, cui Cicero valde placebit.

QUINTIL. INSTIT. l. x. I.

A NEW EDITION.

VOL. II.

PRINTED FOR

London:

VERNOR AND HOOD, J. CUTHELL, J. WALKER,
OTRIDGE AND SON, LACKINGTON, ALLEN AND CO,
OGILVY AND SON, R. FAULDER, R. LEA, J. NUNN,
J. CUMMING, AND E. JEFFREY:

By J. Moir, Edinburgh.

1801.

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THE

LIFE

OF

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.

SECTION VI.

A. Urb. 696. Cic. 50. Coss.---P. Corn. Lent. Spinther. Q. Cæc. Metel. Nepos.]

CICERO's return was what he himself truly calls it, the beginning of a new life to him*, which was to be governed by new maxims, and a new kind of policy, yet so as not to forfeit his old character. He had been made to feel in what hands the weight of power lay, and what little dependence was to be placed on the help and support of his aristocratical friends: Pompey had served him on this important occasion very sincerely, and with the concurrence also of Cæsar, so as to make it a point of gratitude, as well as prudence, to be more observant of them than he had hitherto been:

* Alterius vitæ quoddam initium ordimur. [ad Att. 4. 1.] In another place, he calls his restoration to his former dignity, magyenciar, [ad. Att. 6. 6.] or a new birth; a word borrowed probably from the Pythagorean school, and applied afterwards by the sacred writers to the renovation of our nature by baptism, as well as our restoration to life after death in the general resurrection. Matt. xix. 29. Tit. iii. 5.

VOL. II.

A

*

A. Urb. 696. Cic. 50. Coss.-P. Corn. Lent. Spinther. Q.Cæc. Metel. Nepos.

The senate, on the other hand, with the magistrates, and the honest of all ranks, were zealous in his cause; and the consul Lentulus, above all, seemed to make it the sole end and glory of his administration *. This uncommon consent of opposite parties, in promoting his restoration, drew upon him a variety of obligations,

which must needs often clash and interfere with each other, and which it was his part still to manage so, as to make them consistent with his honour, his safety, his private, and his public duty: these were to be the springs and motives of his new life, the hinges on which his future conduct was to turn; and to do justice severally to them all, and assign to each its proper weight and measure of influence, required his utmost skill and address †.

The day after his arrival, on the fifth of September, the consuls summoned the senate, to give him an opportunity of paying his thanks to them in public for their late services; where, after a general profession of his obligations to them all, he made his particular acknowledgments to each magistrate by name; to the consuls; the tribunes; the prætors: He addressed himself to the tribunes, before the prætors, not for the the dignity of their office, for in that they were infe

*Hoc specimen virtutis, hoc indicium animi, hoc lumen consulatus sui fore putavit, si me mihi, si meis, si reipub. reddidisset.— Post. red. in Sen, 4,

Sed quia sæpe concurrit, propter aliquorum de me meritorem inter ipsos contentiones, ut eodem tempore in omnes verear ne vix possim gratus videri. Sed ego hoc meis ponderibus examinabo, non solum quid cuique debeam, sed etiam quid cujusque intersit, et quid a me cujusque tempus poscat. Pro Plancio. 32.

A. Urb. 696. Cic. 5o. Coss.--P. Corn. Lent. Spinther. Q. Cæc. Metel. Nepos.

rior, but for their greater authority in making laws; and, consequently, their greater merit in carrying his law into effect. The number of his private friends was too great to make it possible for him to enumerate or thank them all; so that he confined himself to the magistrates, with exception only to Pompey *, whom, for the eminence of his character, though at present only a private man, he took care to distinguish by a personal address and compliment. But, as Lentulus was the first in office, and had served him with the greatest affection, so he gives him the first share of his praise; and, in the overflowing of his gratitude, stiles him, the parent and the god of his life and fortunes †. The next day he paid his thanks likewise to the people, in a speech from the rostra; where he dwelt chiefly on the same topics which he had used in the senate, celebrating the particular merits and services of his principal friends, especially of Pompey: whom he declares to be "the greatest man for virtue, wis"dom, glory, who was then living, or had lived, or e

* Cum perpaucis nominatim gratias egissem, quod omnes enumerari nullo modo possent, scelus autem esset quenquam præteriri. Ib. 30.

Hodierno autem die nominatim a me magistratibus statui gratias esse agendas, et de privatis uni, qui pro salute mea municipia, coloniasque adiisset. Post red. in Sen. 12.

+ Princeps P. Lentulus, parens ac Deus nostræ vitæ, fortunæ, &c. Ibid. 4. It was a kind of maxim among the ancients, that, "to do good to a mortal, was to be a god to a mortal :"-Dcus est mortali, juvare mortalem. [Plin. Hist. 2. 7.] Thus Cicero, as he calls Lentulus here his god, so, on other occasions, gives the same appellation to Plato: "Deus ille noster Plato."-[Ad Att. 4. 16.]-to express the highest sense of the benefits received from them.

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