[24] I will add the concluding passage from the pseudo declamation, in order that the reader may see the nature of the words which were put into Sallust's mouth: "Quos tyrannos appellabas, eorum nunc potentiæ faves; qui tibi ante optumates videbantur, eosdem nunc dementes ac furiosos vocas; Vatinii caussam agis, de Sextio male existumas; Bibulum petulantissumis verbis lædis, laudas Cæsarem; quem maxume odisti, ei maxume obsequeris. Aliud stans, aliud sedens, de republica sentis; his maledicis, illos odisti; levissume transfuga, neque in hac, neque illa parte fidem habes." Hence Dio Cassius declared that Cicero had been called a turncoat. καὶ αὐτόμαλος ὠνομάζετο.
[25] Dio Cassius, lib. xlvi., 18: πρὸς ἣν καὶ αὐτὴν τοιαύτας ἐπίστολας γραφεὶς οἵας ἂν γράψειεν ἀνὴρ σκωπτόλης ἀθυρόγλωρρος ... καὶ προσέτι καὶ τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ διαβάλλειν ἐπεχείρησε τοσαύτη ἀσελγεία καὶ ἀκαθαρσία παρὰ πάντα τὸν βιὸν χρώμενος ὥστε μηδὲ τῶν συγγενεστάτων ἀπέχεσθαι, ἀλλὰ τήν τε γυναῖκα προαγωγεύειν καὶ τὴν θυγατέρα μοιχεύειν.
[26] As it happens, De Quincey specially calls Cicero a man of conscience. "Cicero is one of the very few pagan statesmen who can be described as a thoroughly conscientious man," he says. The purport of his illogical essay on Cicero is no doubt thoroughly hostile to the man. It is chiefly worth reading on account of the amusing virulence with which Middleton, the biographer, is attacked.
[27] Quintilian, lib. ii., c. 5.
[28] De Finibus, lib. v., ca. xxii.: "Nemo est igitur, qui non hanc affectionem animi probet atque laudet."
[29] De Rep., lib. vi., ca. vii.: "Nihil est enim illi principi deo, qui omnem hunc mundum regit, quod quidem in terris fiat acceptius." Tusc. Quest., lib. i., ca. xxx.: "Vetat enim dominans ille in nobis deus."
[30] De Rep., lib. vi., ca. vii.: "Certum esse in cœlo definitum locum, ubi beati ævo sempiterno fruantur."
[31] Hor., lib. i., Ode xxii.,
"Non rura qua; Liris quieta Mordet aqua taciturnus amnis."
[32] Such was the presumed condition of things at Rome. By the passing of a special law a plebeian might, and occasionally did, become patrician. The patricians had so nearly died out in the time of Julius Cæsar that he introduced fifty new families by the Lex Cassia.