robbed nor ill-used them. He made a little war, too, upon some troublesome
hill-tribes (intrusting the command chiefly to his brother Quintus, who
had served with distinction under Caesar in Gaul), and gained a victory
which his legions thought of sufficient importance to salute him with
the honoured title of "imperator". Such military honours are especially
flattering to men who, like Cicero, are naturally and essentially
civilians; and to Cicero's vanity they were doubly delightful. Unluckily
they led him to entertain hopes of the further glory of a triumph; and
this, but for the revolution which followed, he might possibly have
obtained. As it was, the only result was his parading about with him
everywhere, from town to town, for months after his return, the lictors
with laurelled fasces, which betokened that a triumph was claimed--a
pompous incumbrance, which became, as he confessed, a grand subject for
evil-disposed jesters, and a considerable inconvenience to himself.




CHAPTER V.


CICERO AND CAESAR.

The future master of Rome was now coming home, after nearly ten years'
absence, at the head of the victorious legions with which he had struck
terror into the Germans, overrun all Spain, left his mark upon Britain,
and "pacified" Gaul. But Cicero, in common with most of the senatorial
party, failed to see in Julius Caesar the great man that he was. He
hesitated a little--Caesar would gladly have had his support, and made him
fair offers; but when the Rubicon was crossed, he threw in his lot with