In his person, Cicero was tall and slender, yet his features were regular and manly. He mingled great dignity with an air of cheerfulness and serenity, that inspired both affection and respect. His constitution was naturally weak, but his prudent habits enabled him to support all the fatigues of an active and studious life, with health and vigor. In dress, he avoided singularity, and was only remarkable for personal neatness and appropriateness of attire. In domestic and social life, his demeanor was exceedingly amiable. He was an affectionate parent, a zealous friend, a generous master. Yet he was not more generous to his friends than placable to his enemies. It was one of his sayings, delivered in a public assembly, that “his enmities were mortal, his friendships immortal.” The moral character of Cicero was not blemished by the stain of any habitual vice. He was, indeed, the shining pattern of virtue in an age, of all others, the most licentious and profligate. His great soul was superior to the sordid passions which engross little minds—avarice, envy and malice. His familiar letters, in which he pours out his whole heart, are free from anything base, immodest or vengeful. A uniform principle of benevolence, justice, love of his friends and his country, is seen to flow through the whole, inspiring all his thoughts and words and actions. The failings of Cicero consisted chiefly in his vanity and that despondency under adverse circumstances, which seemed unworthy of his character. With these abatements, we must pronounce him a truly great and good man—the glory of Rome, an honor to human nature. His works, a large portion of which are extant, are among the richest treasures bequeathed to us by antiquity, and there are few minds so exalted, even with the advantages of our own time, as not to find instruction in his pages. [Illustration] CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR. This celebrated Roman, famous for his intrigues, his generalship, his eloquence and his talents, was born in the year 100 B. C. He was of a good family, and his aunt Julia was wife of Caius Marius, who had been consul. We know little of him in his youth, though it would seem that he early attracted attention by his abilities and ambition. At the age of fifteen, he left his father, and was made a priest in the temple of Jupiter, the year after. At the age of seventeen, he married Cornelia, a daughter of Cinna. By this marriage, and through his aunt Julia, he was allied both to Marius and Cinna, the two principal opposers of Sylla, who had acquired an ascendency in Rome, and exercised his power with fearful and bloody tyranny. Soon after his marriage, Cæsar became an object of suspicion to the despot; he was stripped of his office as priest of Jupiter, his wife’s dower was confiscated, and he, being threatened with death, deemed it prudent to seek safety in flight.