so much noble blood had flowed--the "crudelis interitus oratorum," the
crushing out of the old legalized form of government--was abominable
to him. It was his hope, no doubt his expectation, that these old
forms should be restored in all their power. There seemed to be more
probability of this--there was more probability of it--on the side of
Sulla than the other. On Sulla's side was Pompey, the then rising man,
who, being of the same age with Cicero, had already pushed himself
into prominence, who was surnamed the Great, and who "triumphed"
during these very two years in which Cicero began his career; who
through Cicero's whole life was his bugbear, his stumbling-block, and
his mistake. But on that side were the "optimates," the men who, if
they did not lead, ought to lead the Republic; those who, if they were
not respectable, ought to be so; those who, if they did not love their
country, ought to love it. If there was a hope, it was with them.
The old state of things--that oligarchy which has been called a
Republic--had made Rome what it was; had produced power, civilization,
art, and literature. It had enabled such a one as Cicero was himself
to aspire to lead, though he had been humbly born, and had come to
Rome from an untried provincial family. To him the Republic--as he
fancied that it had been, as he fancied that it might be--was all that
was good, all that was gracious, all that was beneficent. On Sulla's
side lay what chance there was of returning to the old ways. When
Sulla was declared Dictator, it was presumed that the Republic was
restored. But not on this account should it be supposed that Cicero
regarded the proscriptions of Sulla with favor, or that he was
otherwise than shocked by the wholesale robberies for which the
proscription paved the way. This is a matter with which it will be
necessary to deal more fully when we come in our next chapter to the
first speeches made by Cicero; in the very first of which, as I place
them, he attacks the Sullan robberies with an audacity which, when