[96] Pro Plancio, xxvi.




CHAPTER VI.

_VERRES_


There are six episodes, or, as I may say, divisions in the life of
Cicero to which special interest attaches itself. The first is the
accusation against Verres, in which he drove the miscreant howling out
of the city. The second is his Consulship, in which he drove Catiline
out of the city, and caused certain other conspirators who were joined
with the arch rebel to be killed, either legally or illegaly. The
third was his exile, in which he himself was driven out of Rome. The
fourth was a driving out, too, though of a more honorable kind, when
he was compelled, much against his will, to undertake the government
of a province. The fifth was Caesar's passing of the Rubicon, the
battle of Pharsalia, and his subsequent adherence to Caesar. The last
was his internecine combat with Antony, which produced the Philippics,
and that memorable series of letters in which he strove to stir into
flames the expiring embers of the Republic. The literary work with
which we are acquainted is spread, but spread very unequally, over his
whole life. I have already told the story of Sextus Roscius Amerinus,
having taken it from his own words. From that time onward he wrote
continually; but the fervid stream of his eloquence came forth from
him with unrivalled rapidity in the twenty last miserable months of
his life.