"If such moderation be popular at Rome, where there is so much
self-assertion, such unbridled freedom, so much licence allowed to all
men;--where there are so many courts of appeal open, so many means
of help, where the people have so much power and the Senate so much
authority; how grateful beyond measure will moderation be in the governor
of Asia, a province where all that vast number of our fellow-citizens and
subjects, all those numerous states and cities, hang upon one man's nod!
where there is no appeal to the tribune, no remedy at law, no Senate, no
popular assembly. Wherefore it should be the aim of a great man, and one
noble by nature and trained by education and liberal studies, so to behave
himself in the exercise of that absolute power, as that they over whom
he presides should never have cause to wish for any authority other than
his".
IV. TIRO.
Of all Cicero's correspondence, his letters to Tiro supply the most
convincing evidence of his natural kindness of heart. Tiro was a slave;
but this must be taken with some explanation. The slaves in a household
like Cicero's would vary in position from the lowest menial to the
important major-domo and the confidential secretary. Tiro was of this
higher class. He had probably been born and brought up in the service,
like Eliezer in the household of Abraham, and had become, like him, the
trusted agent of his master and the friend of the whole family. He was
evidently a person of considerable ability and accomplishments, acting as
literary amanuensis, and indeed in some sort as a domestic critic, to his
busy master. He had accompanied him to his government in Cilicia, and
on the return home had been taken ill, and obliged to be left behind at
Patrae. And this is Cicero's affectionate letter to him, written from
Leucas (Santa Maura) the day afterwards:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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