Paterculus, who wrote in the time of Tiberius, speaks of Cicero's
achievements with the highest honor. "At this period," he says, "lived
Marcus Cicero, who owed everything to himself; a man of altogether a
new family, as distinguished for ability as he was for the purity
of his life."[11] Valerius Maximus quotes him as an example of a
forgiving character.[12] Perhaps the warmest praise ever given to him
came from the pen of Pliny the elder, from whose address to the memory
of Cicero I will quote only a few words, as I shall refer to it more
at length when speaking of his consulship. "Hail thou," says Pliny,
"who first among men was called the father of your country."[13]
Martial, in one of his distichs, tells the traveller that if he have
but a book of Cicero's writing he may fancy that he is travelling with
Cicero himself.[14] Lucan, in his bombastic verse, declares how Cicero
dared to speak of peace in the camp of Pharsalia. The reader may think
that Cicero should have said nothing of the kind, but Lucan mentions
him with all honor.[15] Not Tacitus, as I think, but some author whose
essay De Oratoribus was written about the time of Tacitus, and whose
work has come to us with the name of Tacitus, has told us of Cicero
that he was a master of logic, of ethics, and of physical science.[16]
Everybody remembers the passage in Juvenal,

"Sed Roma parentem
Roma patrem patriae Ciceronem libera dixit."

"Rome, even when she was free, declared him to be the father of his
country."[17] Even Plutarch, who generally seems to have a touch
of jealousy when speaking of Cicero, declares that he verified the
prediction of Plato, "That every State would be delivered from its
calamities whenever power should fortunately unite with wisdom and
justice in one person."[18] The praises of Quintilian as to the