made to endure through all futurity."[202] This certainly is frank. And in another oration Cicero sharply declares that no man exerts himself with praise and virtue in the perils of the republic who is not moved thereto by the hope of Glory and a regard to posterity.[203] [202] Pro Archia, 11. [203] Pro C. Rabirio, 10. Thus distinctly recognizing human applause as an all-sufficient motive of conduct, and professing his own dependence upon it, we cannot be surprised at his sedulous efforts to fortify his Fame, nor even at the iterations of self-praise with which his productions abound. In that interesting collection of letters, so much of which is happily spared to us, disclosing the aims and aspirations of his life, there is melancholy evidence of the pernicious sway of this passion, even in his noble bosom. With an immodest freedom, which he vindicates to himself by the remarkable expression, that _an epistle does not blush_, he invites his friend Lucceius to undertake the history of that portion of his life rendered memorable by the overthrow of the Catilinarian conspiracy, his exile, and return to his country; and, not content with dwelling on the variety and startling nature of the incidents, with the scope they would naturally afford to the accomplished historian, whose Glory, he subtly suggests, may in this way be connected forever with his own, as is that of Apelles with the Glory of Alexander, he proceeds so far as to press his friend, if he does not think the facts worth the pains of adorning, yet to allow so much to friendship, to affection, and to that favor which he had so persuasively condemned in his prefaces, as not to confine himself scrupulously to the strict laws of history or the requirements of truth.[204] Thus, in the madness of his passion for Glory, would he suborn that sacred verity which is higher than friendship, affection, or any earthly favor! [204] Epistolæ ad Diversos, Lib. V. 12.--The letter to Lucceius seems to have been a favorite, as it is a most remarkable, production of its author. Writing to Atticus, he says, "_Valde bella est_," and seeks to interest him in the same behalf. (Ad Atticum, Lib. IV. 6.) Pliny, who looked to the pen of Tacitus for Fame, but in a higher spirit than Cicero, expressly declares that he does not desire him to give the least offence to truth. "Quanquam non exigo ut excedas actæ rei modum. Nam nec historia debet egredi veritatem, et honeste factis veritas sufficit."--Plin. Epistolæ, Lib. VII. 33.